August 17, 2018 — Commercial salmon harvests in Prince William Sound are edging closer to the 24 million fish mark, with the catch to date still way behind the season’s forecast.
Preliminary harvest results posted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game through Aug. 14 were up by about two million fish from a week earlier, with deliveries of some 19 million humpies, 3.3 million chums, 1.8 million sockeyes, 35,000 silvers and 7,000 Chinooks.
The bulk of the chum catch to date, 1.8 million fish, were captured by drift gillnetters in the Coghill District, and the bulk of the pink salmon – more than 10 million humpies – were taken by purse seiners in eastern Prince William Sound, followed by other purse seiners in southwestern and northern areas of the sound.
Purse seiners in eastern Prince William Sound have led the coho harvest with some 12,504 silvers, followed by other purse seiners in southwestern Prince William Sound, with 9,366 fish.
Drift gillnetters in Eshamy Main Bay led in the catch of sockeyes with an overall seasonal catch to date of 956,622 reds, and Copper River drift gillnetters had some 7,164 kings, far and away more than any other Prince William Sound district.
Still the overall harvest of sockeyes and Chinooks to date compared with a forecast of 1.8 million reds and 14,000 kings for the sound fisheries.