June 27, 2025 — Sockeye salmon harvests from the Copper River were holding their own in quality, but not quantity, and still tracking well below forecast earlier this week, with the catch from the 48-hour opener still to be calculated.
Data compiled in the aftermath of the commercial opener that ended on June 20 showed a harvest of over 60,000 wild Copper River sockeyes from that run as of June 24. Had that harvest been on track with the forecast, the catch would have been more like 115,000 reds, said Jeremy Botz, a veteran fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) at Cordova.
Botz said the chum harvest is coming in as anticipated but there has not been a directed fishery on chums because of the hatchery cost recovery program and a large part of the chum run this year is being taken for cost recovery. The Chinook run, which is about done, is low, similar to the forecast, and looks healthy, he said.
On the bright side, if the harvest remains low retail prices should hold, where those fish were still not sold out.
In Anchorage they were sold out at seafood specialty shop 10th & M Seafoods. The seafood department at New Sagaya still had Copper River red fillets for $19.99 a pound and headed and gutted reds for $19.99 a pound, and Costco warehouses had fresh Copper River red fillets still at $16.99 a pound.