ADF&G Fish Report: Commercial fishing winds down
Norton Sound Salmon Commercial Fishing: Cumulative catch is 14 kings, 6,200 chums, 261,000 pinks, 465 sockeyes and 6,400 silvers.
Commercial salmon fishing closed the evening of September 2. This season the chum and silver runs were very poor, and the pink run although much lower than the record runs of the last 5 years was average for an odd-numbered year. Only in the early 2000s were there 5 years of chum harvests lower than this year. This year’s silver harvest was the poorest since 2002 and the 15th lowest on record. Pinks were the only bright spot this year with a record harvest for an odd-numbered year and the 5th highest harvest on record for all years.
Unalakleet Subdistrict
Commercial Fishing: Cumulative catch is 6 kings, 850 chums, 166,000 pinks, 100 sockeyes and 2,100 silvers caught by 40 permit holders.
Subsistence Fishing: Gillnet fishing is open 7 days a week, but beach seining is closed.
Shaktoolik Subdistrict
Commercial Fishing: Cumulative catch is 5 kings, 1,000 chums, 63,000 pinks, 120 sockeyes and 2,400 silvers caught by 22 permit holders.
Subsistence Fishing: Gillnet fishing is open 7 days a week, but beach seining is closed.
Norton Bay Subdistrict
Commercial Fishing: Cumulative catch was 50 chums, 10,000 pinks, 8 sockeyes and 160 silvers by 6 permit holders.
Subsistence Fishing: Net fishing is open 7 days a week.
Elim Subdistrict
Commercial Fishing: Cumulative catch was 1 king, 450 chums, 7,000 pinks, 40 sockeyes and 900 silvers by 12 permit holders.
Subsistence Fishing: Open 7 days a week.
Kwiniuk River Tower – Camp Joel - Escapement goal: Silvers 6501,300 (aerial survey goal). Fish & Game project.
Counting resumed last Wednesday and 600 silvers have passed the tower since then. Historically over 90% of the silver run is by the tower the first week of September.
Golovin Subdistrict
Commercial Fishing: Cumulative catch is 3,500 chums, 14,000 pinks, 175 sockeyes and 500 silvers by 8 permit holders.
Subsistence Fishing: Open 7 days a week.
Nome Subdistrict
Commercial Fishing: Cumulative catch was 3 kings, 250 chums, 50 pinks, 30 sockeyes and 400 silvers by 6 permit holders.
Subsistence Fishing: Open 7 days
a week. Beach seines are no longer a legal gear to harvest salmon.
The department was able to aerial survey the rivers last week and all rivers had well below average numbers of silvers.
Snake River Weir - NSEDC project.
Weir was fish tight August 23 and 79 silvers passed the weir in 7 days and the weir was knocked out again by high water. The weir has been pulled for the season.
Port Clarence District
Subsistence fishing is open 7 days a week, except all net fishing is closed on the Pilgrim River. Kotzebue
Cumulative catch was 96,500 chums by 50 permit holders. The fishery closed after last Friday’s opening. This year’s harvest was well below last year’s harvest of 150,000 chums and was the lowest harvest since the early 2000s.