July 11, 2016 — Salmon takes center stage each summer but many other fisheries also are in full swing from Ketchikan to Kotzebue.
For salmon, total catches by Friday were nearing 28 million fish, of which 10 million were sockeyes, primarily from Bristol Bay. Last week marked the catch of the 2 billionth sockeye from the Bay since the fishery began in 1884.
Other salmon highlights: Southeast trollers wrapped up their summer chinook fishery on Tuesday after taking 158,000 kings in just eight days. The chinook catch is strictly limited by a U.S. and Canada treaty, and for only the third summer in 15 years, trollers won’t get another allotment for an August opener.
Sockeye catches at the North Peninsula were so strong, the fleet was put on limits by Peter Pan Seafoods, the lone processor in the region. The harvest there topped 1.3 million reds last week.
It’s been slowing going around Kodiak Island, where the catch was approaching 700,000 fish, mostly sockeyes. The pace was picking up at Cook Inlet with a catch nearing 400,000, primarily reds. At Prince William Sound, the harvest of chums, pinks and sockeyes topped 7.6 million fish.