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 4^th 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 4^th 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.