Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article inaccurately cited the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s preseason prediction for the statewide pink salmon summer harvest. The preseason prediction is 124 million fish, not 214 million fish. This has been corrected in the article below.
After a slow start, pink salmon catches are gathering steam as Alaska’s summer salmon season moves into its final weeks of fishing.
Major pink salmon producers Prince William Sound and Southeast Alaska are up around 40 percent compared to 2019, according to the weekly salmon report from McKinley Research. Pink landings in Prince William Sound were pushing 44 million, while Southeast was over 25 million, with the statewide pink harvest pushing over 88 million, more than 70 percent of the predicted 124 million fish harvest. Strong pink catches last week made “second in salmon harvest volume only to the peak of the sockeye season on 4 July,” according to McKinley Research.
Catches of chum salmon, also known as keta, also picked up last week, a welcome development for Alaska's seafood industry, as chum catches have cratered since 2018. Chum salmon harvests exceeded their five-year average for the first time this year, with a spike in chum catches in the Alaska Peninsula, where fishermen have already caught 77 percent more than last season. Total chum catch was up 25 percent from last season’s dismal statewide offering, but it was still around 50 percent below the five-year average.
The total statewide harvest was seven percent better than last year at the same date, getting a bump from pinks and chums that added to an already strong sockeye harvest, which is all but wrapped up across Alaska.
The total harvest of nearly 53 million fish adding up to 113 percent of the preseason forecast of 46.5 million sockeye. The strong sockeye catch was once again driven by Bristol Bay, where a record run of over 66 million fish was the largest since record keeping began there in 1893.
According to the Bristol Bay Regional Development Association, the base ex-vessel value this season in Bristol Bay came in at USD 231 million (EUR 198 million), and that “the value will increase as quality premiums and potential price adjustments are added.”
While Bristol Bay strength and the pink surge are positives, troubling signs remain for many Alaska salmon runs. Runs were so poor on the Yukon River that subsistence fishing was closed, and locals were going out into the Bering Sea in skiffs in search of whitefish to stock their freezers. The Chignik area also continued its poor stretch, with nearly no reporting because of low participation in the fishery.
Chinook salmon catch statewide was also poor, with just 57 percent of the paltry preseason forecast of 269,000 chinook landed.
Photo courtesy of Maxim Gorishniak
