The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported April 25 that commercial fishermen caught a total of 66.6 million salmon in Southeast Alaska during 2023, including wild runs and hatchery-produced fish.
For this year, the department is predicting much lower numbers for Southeast, with much weaker pink salmon returns.
Fish and Game last week issued its prediction that Southeast fishermen across all commercial gear groups would catch a total of 38.7 million salmon this summer, including 169,000 chinook, 929,000 sockeye, 1.5 million coho, 16 million chum and 19.7 million pinks — less than half of last year’s pink salmon harvest.
Last April, Fish and Game estimated that Southeast Alaska commercial fishermen would take 31.6 million fish in 2023 — the actual harvest came in more than double. The high catch beat out 2021, the previous “odd-year” salmon harvest, by 7.7 million fish, according to Fish and Game.
The department said last year’s catch of more than 66.6 million salmon was 46% greater than the average Southeast Alaska harvest over the past 10 years of 45.6 million.
Last year’s preseason estimate fell especially short for pink salmon. After the department forecast a “weak” commercial harvest of about 19.5 million pink salmon for 2023, harvesters landed approximately 47.9 million pinks last year.
The seine fishery took 94% of all pink salmon harvested.
“The 2023 Southeast Alaska pink salmon harvest was limited by processor capacity and market conditions, otherwise it likely would have been higher,” according to Fish and Game.
Fish and Game said “one possible explanation” for the strong pink salmon returns “may have been related in part to exceptional marine survival once juvenile pink salmon left SEAK inside waters.”
Commercial fishermen’s 2023 harvests of chum, sockeye and coho salmon all exceeded the department’s predictions.
Fishermen last year took about 15.8 million chum salmon, while Fish and Game had predicted that they would catch 9.8 million.
The 2023 harvest of sockeye and coho in Southeast Alaska beat the department’s projections, but both species fell “below both recent 10-year and long-term averages” for total regional harvest, according to Fish and Game.
Southeast trollers’ 2023 chinook “harvest of 189,000 fish was below both recent 10-year (258,000 fish) and long-term (292,000 fish) averages,” according to Fish and Game.
Seine fishermen took in about 52.7 million of the total 66.6 million fish harvested in Southeast last year. In addition to 44.7 million pinks, seiners netted 7.1 million chums.
Drift gillnetters caught about 4.6 million salmon, including 3.5 million chums and 637,000 pinks.
Power-troll fishermen landed about 1.6 million salmon, consisting of about 1 million coho, 355,000 chum, 137,000 chinook, 88,000 pinks and 2,000 sockeye.
Hand-troll fishermen cranked in about 147,000 salmon, including 97,000 chum and 28,000 coho.
Cost-recovery fisheries prosecuted by private nonprofit regional hatchery associations mopped up about 5.6 million salmon, including about 4.4 million chum and 843,000 pink.
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