The commercial salmon harvest in Alaska has now reached a preliminary estimate to date of nearly 28 million fish, more than doubling the overall catch from a week ago.
As of Tuesday, July 6, deliveries to processors included some 21.5 million sockeyes, 3.6 million pink, nearly 2.6 million chum, 64,000 Chinook and 7,000 coho salmon.
The big surge came, as anticipated, in Bristol Bay in Southwest Alaska, where gillnetters have delivered to processors as estimated nearly 16 million salmon, with few exceptions all sockeyes.
Fishermen in the Nushagak district have already set two new all-time record high daily landing totals, including an estimated 1.7 million sockeyes landed on June 30 and 1.8 million salmon on July 1, both in 24-hour periods. The preliminary cumulative harvest for the Nushagak as of late Tuesday, June 6, was in excess of 10 million fish.
The Egegik District has delivered to processors 3.6 million fish and the Naknek-Kvichak District some 1.6 million fish. Another 666,000 salmon were delivered from the Ugashik District and 35,000 fish from the Togiak District. Alaska’s Central District, also including Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound has brought in a total of nearly 19 million salmon.
Meanwhile in Alaska’s Westward District, the preliminary harvest figures posted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game show an estimated catch of nearly nine million salmon.
For the Alaska Peninsula that includes more than eight million salmon caught in the Alaska Peninsula, including over four million sockeye, 3.3 million pink, 802,000 coho, 4,000 Chinook and 3,000 coho. The Kodiak catch to date of 794,000 fish, includes an estimated 688,000 sockeye, 66,000 pink, and 40,000 chum salmon.
For Southeast Alaska, ADF&G has a preliminary harvest total of 105,000 fish, including some 50,000 Chinook, 36,000 chum, 10,000 pin, 5,000 sockeye and 4,000 coho, Harvests are yet to begin in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwin region.