Commercial harvesters in Bristol Bay’s Nushagak District have brought in nearly 11 million salmon to date in the 2024 fishery, and with the other bay districts have delivered a total of more than 24 million pounds of salmon to processors.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game notes that the statewide catch estimate for the commercial salmon fishery reached 38.2 million pounds as of July 1, up from 25 million salmon on July 9.
It’s been a tough season for commercial fishermen in the Naknek-Kvichak district, however. ADF&G biologist Travis Elison, in Dillingham, says the anticipated run forecast of 5.5 million salmon is likely to end up being below two million fish, and what happened to the rest of the forecasted run is unknown.
Elison said the last time the Naknek-Kvichak had a weak run was 1997 — 27 years ago — and ADF&G then didn’t know what happened to the rest of those fish, either.
A total of some 615 commercial harvesters are still fishing in the Naknek-Kvichak district, out of a total of 1,215 commercial boats harvesting in Bristol Bay statewide. Elison said he expected commercial fishing to continue at least through the end of this week.
The state’s central region has brought in an estimated 30.6 million fish including 27.8 million sockeye 1.5 million chum, 1.3 million pink and 8,000 Chinook salmon, data show.
The ADF&G blue sheet shows a cumulative total of 24.5 million sockeye, 202,000 chum and 2,000 kings for Bristol Bay. For Prince William Sound deliveries to processors have reached 5.5 million fish, including 2.9 million sockeye, 1.3 million pink, 1.3 million chum and 6,000 kings.
For Cook Inlet 403,000 fish, harvesters’ catch to date includes 387,000 red, 15000 chum and 1,000 pink salmon.
The Southeast Region has caught 4.2 million fish including 3.7 million chum, 216,000 pink, 127,000 king and 106000 sockeye salmon and the Westward Region catch is now 3.4 million fish, including 2.3 million red, 799,000 chum, 326,000 pink, 6,000 coho and 5,000 Chinook.
For the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region a total of 2,000 chum have been delivered to processors, all of those fish from the Norton Sound area.
10th & M Seafoods in Anchorage had fresh sockeye salmon fillets still for $12.95 a pound and FishEx, the online retailer in Anchorage, was still selling Copper River Sockeye portions for $37.95 a pound. Fred Meyer supermarkets, also in Anchorage, were selling fresh sockeye fillets for $10.99 a pound and Carrs/Safeway was advertising fresh sockeye fillets for $14.99 a pound.