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Coho Update, 9 October:
Fall Coho: Though coho are still being harvested
by net gear in the Neets Bay THA and in District 106/108 drift fisheries, this
will be the last in-season fall coho update. The return in 2010 was both strong
and later than usual and the fish were average size, weighing slightly more than
10 pounds in the terminal fisheries.
If you look at the lowest graphic below, depicting the
all-gear catch of SSRAA fall coho, it is apparent that there was a surge in
harvest from about mid September forward. It is important to note that the fish
caught in Neets Bay and D106/108 for the past several weeks are not included in
these graphics as the tags and harvest numbers have not been finalized by the
department. Regardless, the late surge in harvest is obvious. For whatever
reason, weather, abundance of feed, or coho cantankerousness, these fish tended
to hold off shore longer than usual. These are late run fish and this behavior
made them even later. It is not the first time that the troll closure occurred
at or near the peak of troll harvest. The closure is based on the abundance of
wild fish, not enhanced coho, so these two things don’t necessarily coincide.
The consequence is that some harvest is passed from troll to net gear “clean up”
fisheries.
Yesterday I spoke to one of the several seiners who
fished their second rotation in Neets Bay. They were still catching decent
numbers of coho. The first rotation of both seine and gill net saw about 15
boats participate. Participation dropped off dramatically in the subsequent
rotation, in large part because there are few if any processors still buying
salmon.
It was encouraging to see that the fish released in
Bakewell Lake continue to do well. They were available to south end trollers a
little earlier than our other releases, including Nakat. The total numbers for
this release will go up as we are able to find out how many were caught in
Canadian fisheries and how many fish returned to the lake (monitored by the
Forest Service).
It is no longer possible for SSRAA to track the sport
harvest of these fish. The fishery builds in the Ketchikan area through the
middle of September until early October. SF Division discontinues their creel
survey in early September; at the point these fish first become most abundant in
the Ketchikan fishery. There is a significant sport harvest that has
historically been as high as 17,000 fish from this fishery. With the abundance
of coho in Behm Canal this year, it is possible harvest reached this historic
number. We will do our best to estimate what this number might have been in
2010.
Final fall coho harvest numbers will be available in
several months. These final numbers will be put on the large harvest summary
table as they occur.
2010 was a strong year for SSRAA fall and summer coho.
John Burke
Coho Update, 19 September:
Fall Coho: The number of SSRAA fall coho in
current all-gear catches continues to increase as the fish enter “inside”
fisheries. Troll harvest is still strong and the harvest in drift fisheries in
D106 and D101 has increased dramatically over the past two weeks. The fish are
also starting to enter the THA’s at Nakat and Anita Bay where they are being
caught by net gear. Historically these fish are predominantly caught by
trollers, and that is the case so far in 2010; but with the September 20 troll
closure with D101, D106 and the THA’s remaining viable net fisheries a large
portion of the late return will be caught by net gear. The Ketchikan area sport
fishery has been successfully targeting these fish for the past several weeks.
It’s not uncommon for good numbers of these fish to return to terminal areas
into October.
For those of you following the Bakewell Lake Project, as
you can see from the attached graphics, these fish have done well in 2010. It
looks as if they contribute to south end troll a little earlier than the other
release sites…regardless, the harvest pattern is pretty similar for all the
releases of the Chickamin stock.
A reminder, the last points on the current graphics,
week 37, will increase over the next few weeks as the tags are read by ADF&G and
the tags are expanded to represent harvest and week 38 tags will enter the
database. Sometimes these increases are dramatic. The apparent dip in harvest
in week 37 is an artifact of sampling time, not true abundance of these fish in
harvest.
Summer Coho: The return of summer coho run is
done. It was a good season for both common property harvesters and cost
recovery.
Coho Update, 10 September:
Summer Coho: The return of summer coho run is
done. It was a good season for both common property harvesters and cost
recovery.
Fall Coho: The number of SSRAA fall coho in
current all-gear catches is increasing rapidly at this point in the season – as
the graphics illustrate. These are late-run fish that have just started
entering “inside” fisheries. Historically these fish are predominantly caught
by trollers, and that is the case in 2010. As yet we have not taken many fall
coho during cost recovery at Neets Bay and few fish have returned to the raceway
at Whitman Lake. Noting a dramatic increase of SSRAA fall coho from these two
sites in theD106 drift harvest last week and of Nakat fish in the Tree Point
drift harvest, it looks like the first good numbers of these fish are reaching
the terminal areas. It’s not uncommon for good numbers of these fish to return
to terminal areas into October.
For those of you following the new Bakewell Lake
Project, as you can see from the attached graphics, these fish continue to do
well in this year’s harvest.
A reminder, the last two points on the graphics, week 35
and 36, will increase over the next few weeks as the tags are read by ADF&G and
the tags are expanded to represent harvest. Sometimes these increases are
dramatic. The apparent dip in harvest these last two weeks is an artifact of
sampling time, not true abundance of these fish in harvest.
John Burke
Coho Update, 30 August:
Summer Coho: The return of summer coho run is
done. It was a good season for both common property harvesters and cost
recovery.
Fall Coho: All releases of SSRAA fall coho are
showing well in this summer’s harvest (Neets, Nakat, Anita, Bakewell Lake and
Crystal Creek). Most of the harvest to date has been by the troll fleet. This
will remain the case until early September when the fish begin to move to inside
waters. It is still a relatively early point in the SSRAA fall coho return, the
primary harvest of these fish takes place through the next 4 weeks. The true
strength of this run will be apparent in the next few weeks as historically we
see – or don’t see - harvest numbers dramatically increase.
For those of you following the new Bakewell Lake
Project, this group is doing well related to all the smaller SSRAA release
groups. The Crystal Lake fish also showed much better in this year’s harvest
than they did last year. This is an earlier run fish, and the harvest of
Crystal Lake coho is tapering off.
John Burke
2010 Coho Update, 12 August:
Summer Coho: The return of summer coho to both
Whale Pass (Neck Lake) and Burnett Inlet Hatchery is tapering off, some of these
fish will be harvested the next few weeks, but only a few.
Fall Coho: All releases of SSRAA fall coho are
showing well in this summer’s harvest. As would be expected, most of the
harvest to date has been by the troll fleet. This will remain the case until
early September when the fish move into inside waters. It is still an early
point in the SSRAA fall coho return. SSRAA’s stock of fall coho, Chickamin
River, is a late-run fish. The peak of the return in local waters is from mid
September to the first of October.
The almost annual coho closure, four days in 2010,
started at midnight on Tuesday 10 August. We do not expect many coho will be
harvested this week because of the troll closure.
John Burke
2010 Coho Update, 6 August:
Summer Coho: The return of summer coho to both
Whale Pass (Neck Lake) and Burnett Inlet Hatchery is tapering off, though these
fish are still being harvested in the D106 drift fishery.
Fall Coho: All the releases of SSRAA fall coho
are now being caught in this year’s troll harvest. The Neets fish are most
prominent, but that is to be expected as the release at Neets is far the
largest. This is still a very early point in the fall coho return. SSRAA’s
stock of fall coho, Chickamin River, is a late-run fish. The peak of the return
in local waters is from mid September to the first of October.
Because this is a late-run stock, the strength of each
season’s return does not become apparent for several more weeks…all returns,
strong or weak, appear relatively similar in the earliest stages of harvest.
John Burke
2010 Coho Update, 29 July:
Summer Coho: The return of summer coho to both
Whale Pass (Neck Lake) and Burnett Inlet Hatchery seems is tapering off, though
to some extent this is related to less effort and time in D106.
Troll harvest of summer coho increased a little in week
30 from week 29. That probably related to troll effort as opposed to the
abundance of these fish. We don’t have any information about the troll harvest
of summer coho this week as processing tag data lags the fishery by at least a
week.
Fall Coho: All the releases of SSRAA fall coho
have are now in this year’s troll harvest. The Neets fish are most prominent,
but that is to be expected as the release at Neets is far the largest. For
those following the Bakewell Lake project, those fish are holding their own in
the current harvest with a catch estimate very similar to the Herring Cove
release. This is still a very early point in the fall coho return. SSRAA’s
stock of fall coho, Chickamin River, is a late-run fish. The peak of the return
in local waters is from mid September to the first of October.
We will begin to include fall coho graphics next week.
John Burke
2010 Coho Update, 23 July:
Summer Coho: The return of summer coho to both
Whale Pass (Neck Lake) and Burnett Inlet Hatchery seems to be tapering off,
though this could be related to fewer boats in D106, less fishing time this
week, and that some gear was targeting chum. Historically the harvest of these
fish in D106 has gone on for several weeks. Currently the fleet is constrained
to several days fishing related to McDonald Lake and the pink management plan.
In addition, among those who are fishing some are targeting chum, others
sockeye, and some are still probably targeting these fish. The catch varies a
great deal related to what is being targeted.
Troll harvest of summer coho picked up in week 28. We
can’t tell if that trend has continued as all the tags recovered in weeks 29 and
30 have not been processed. It does not look like trollers targeted the fish as
much as they did last time during the same period.
Fall Coho: SSRAA fall coho are starting to show in
the database. We won’t start any graphics until the tag data settles some…tags
are read and recoveries expanded to represent havest. Fish have been harvested
from each of the release sites: Neets Bay, Nakat, Bakewell Lake, Anita, Herring
Cove and Blind Slough. Almost all the harvest at this date has been by troller,
though a few fish have been caught by each net group.
2010 Coho Update, 17 July:
The return of summer coho to both Whale Pass (Neck Lake)
and Burnett Inlet Hatchery continues to be strong. District 106 per boat coho
harvest numbers dropped to last year’s level this past week. Though that is a
marked decline from what we have seen, last year was a good year for these
fish. The survival of these fish has already exceeded our experience but for
the first year of the project – and the fishery should continue for another 4 or
5 weeks.
In addition to the drift fleet, trollers are also
harvesting the fish. Currently we can account for more than 4,000 fish in the
troll harvest. Last year trollers were able to catch more than 15,000 summer
coho. The fish will be available to trollers in D105 and D106 for the next
several weeks.
Those of you who have followed this project through the
years know we sometimes have difficulty in making the normal tag lab expansions
apply and the ability to identify Snow Pass Coho is lost in the process. This
occurred again in several statistical weeks, during the peak of the early return
when tendered fish from D106 and D108 were mixed and the fish were not used in
the normal tag expansions. About half the recovered tags were not counted at
that time. Since summer coho from these projects are likely almost the only
fish in this harvest…this loss of information accounts in large part for the gap
between the total coho harvest in D106/108 and the drift harvest of SSRAA’s Snow
Pass fish. This problem may have been corrected for the past several weeks.
We have seen very few fall coho in the database, but that
is not unanticipated for this date. There have been a few of these fish and we
will start tracking them in several weeks.
2010 Coho Update, 10 July:
The return of summer coho to both Whale Pass (Neck Lake)
and Burnett Inlet is very strong. If this continues through the normal run
period it will be significantly better than any return from the previous 12
years of this project. The number of drift boats fishing D106 is about half
what it was the previous week and the per boat harvest of coho was about 30%
greater than it had been the previous week. Historically these fish have
continued to return in good numbers through at least the next two or three
weeks…sometimes longer. The drift and troll harvest shown on the graph is not
the final data, there have been so many tags it is taking time to process this
information through the ADF&G tag lab.
These fish are harvested in D106 by drift gear, in troll
fisheries through mid July in the waters around Prince of Wales Island, and in
large numbers by sport anglers in Whale Pass.
We have seen very few fall coho in the database, but that
is not unanticipated for this date.
2010 Coho Update, 26 June:
Generally we begin to harvest fish from the raceway at Neck
Lake right after the 4th of July. This afternoon or early tomorrow
morning we will have harvested about 8,400 fish from the raceway. The drift
fleet in D106 harvested 21,000 coho last week, stat week 26. This number is so
much larger than what we have seen in the past at this date that it is literally
“off the chart”. We have no idea how long this run strength will be sustained,
and perhaps the run is just early – but it is far more likely that for whatever
reason this return is much stronger than it has been across the past 10 years.
These fish are harvested in D106 by drift gear, in much
smaller numbers in D102 seine, in troll fisheries through mid July in the waters
around Prince of Wales Island, and in large numbers by sport anglers in Whale
Pass.
First 2010 Coho Update, 18
June:
Generally we begin to harvest fish from the raceway at Neck
Lake right after the 4th of July. This afternoon there are more than
500 in the raceway at Neck Lake with 7,000 coho caught this week by the drift
fleet in D106. This is very strong for this date…the run could be early or
strong or both. One other thing, while the fish were smaller than usual last
year while this year, they appear larger than average now. The observation
about size is based on only the first harvest, hopefully it will hold up.
Historically larger runs tended to have larger fish.
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