Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association, Inc.
Enhancing and Rehabilitating Salmon Production in Southeast Alaska

SSRAA's Hatcheries and Related Enhancement Programs: 

SSRAA has three production salmon hatcheries in southern SE Alaska, Neets Bay hatchery (Neets Bay), Whitman Lake Hatchery (Whitman) and Burnett Inlet Hatchery (Burnett).  In 2000 SSRAA was contracted by ADF&G Sport Fish Division to operate Crystal Lake Hatchery (Crystal Lake).  In addition to the hatcheries SSRAA operates production-scale remote rearing and release sites at:  Nakat Inlet, Kendrick Bay, Anita Bay, and Neck Lake. 

Neets Bay and Whitman Lake Hatcheries:  It would be confusing to consider the enhancement program of either Neets Bay or Whitman Lake independently.  These two facilities operate as extensions of one another and produce chinook, fall coho, and summer and fall chum salmon.

SSRAA constructed the Neets Bay facility with funds borrowed from the Department of Commerce.  The facility has been in operation since 1983.  The hatchery is located at the outfall of Neets Creek at the head of Neets Bay about 40 miles due north of Ketchikan.  The only access to the site is by water or air.

The Whitman Lake facility has been operational since 1978 and like Neets Bay was built by SSRAA with funds from the Department of Commerce.  The hatchery is located at Herring Cove in George Inlet, approximately 10 miles south of Ketchikan on the Tongass Highway.

Summer chum salmon, Carroll Inlet stock, are the primary product of these two facilities.  Approximately 100 million summer chum eggs are collected and eyed at Neets Bay.  Approximately 30 million eyed eggs are moved to Whitman Lake to incubate until fry emergence.  Emergent summer chum fry from Whitman are transported to Nakat Inlet (8 million) and Kendrick Bay (20 million) in the spring of each year.  The fry are reared for several months at those sites and then released.  The remaining summer chums are incubated at Neets Bay.  At emergence, 14 million summer chums are moved to Anita Bay for rearing and release while 48 million are reared and released at the Neets Bay Hatchery site.

Fall chum salmon, Disappearance Creek stock, are also produced at Neets Bay.  Approximately 28 million fall chum fry are annually produced in this program.  As with the summer chum, 8 million of these fish are moved as eyed eggs to Whitman Lake and are moved to Nakat Inlet for rearing and release.   The remaining 20 million are reared and released at Neets Bay.

Fall coho salmon, Chickamin River stock, are produced at Whitman Lake.  About 2 million coho are moved to Neets Bay for rearing to yearling smolt while the rest of the fish remain at Whitman for rearing to smolt.  Each spring about a million smolts from Whitman are moved to Neets Bay to be released with those reared at Neets Bay, 3 million total.  About 300,000 smolts are released at Whitman Lake to provide broodstock, 300,000 are moved to Nakat Inlet for rearing and release and 225,000 are moved to Anita Bay for rearing and release.

Chinook salmon, Chickamin River stock, are produced at Whitman Lake Hatchery; 750,000 of these fish are retained at Whitman Lake for rearing to yearling smolt and release while 250,000 are moved as fry to Long Lake which drains into Neets Bay.  The fry are reared to smolt size and released in Long Lake in the fall of the their first year.  The fry volitionally move from Long Lake to saltwater as smolt the following spring.

Returns from the Whitman Lake/Neets Bay Program:  An average year sees about 1.6 million summer chum return from the Neets Bay release.  About 30 to 35% of these fish are harvested in traditional common property net fisheries along the return corridors.  The remaining fish are harvested in the Neets Bay Special Harvest Area by trollers (200,000 chums), for cost recovery and for broodstock needs.  Neets Bay is SSRAA’s primary cost recovery site.  All the fish released at Nakat, Kendrick and Anita Bay are harvested by the common property net fleets.

The fall chums returning to Neets Bay are harvested by SSRAA for cost recovery and broodstock until 25 September.  From 2002 through 2005, rotational fisheries of gill net and seine gear will be conducted in Neets Bay after 25 September for fall chum and coho.  Fall chum are also harvested at Nakat Inlet in a rotational fishery between the two net gear groups.

On average more than 70% of the fall Neets Bay coho are intercepted by trollers, the net fleets and sport fishermen along the corridors of return.  In the past several years fewer of these coho were caught by trollers as participation in that fishery has diminished.  This release has contributed as many as 100,000 fish to the troll fleet and most of the harvest is in the Sitka area.  A significant number of these fish are also harvested by gill-netters in District 106 at the northern end of Prince of Wales Island.  For the last several years the Ketchikan area sport fishery has harvested close to 15,000 of these fish each season.  The remaining fish are used for cost recovery in Neets Bay or harvested in the rotational net fisheries conducted in Neets Bay after 25 September.  A high percentage of coho, sometimes greater than 90%, returning to Whitman Lake are intercepted by common property troll, net and sport fisheries.  The fish that reach the hatchery are used for broodstock.  All of the coho returning to Nakat Inlet and Anita Bay are harvested by common property troll, net and sport fishermen.

As many as 8 to 10 thousand chinook returning to Neets Bay and Whitman Lake are harvested by trollers in spring hatchery access fisheries.  The return to Whitman Lake also drives the early-season “Mountain Point” sport fishery in Ketchikan.  This fishery is extensively utilized by both resident and nonresident-guided anglers on charter vessels and accounts for a minimum of several thousand of these fish.  Broodstock fish are collected at Whitman Lake.  The chinooks returning to Neets Bay contribute primarily to distant troll fisheries, the Ketchikan area sport fishery and cost recovery in Neets Bay.  The harvest rate on the chinook returning to Neets Bay is not nearly as high as the rate on the Whitman Lake fish and in that context they represent an underutilized opportunity to common property fishermen.

Burnett Inlet Hatchery:  Burnett Inlet Hatchery is located in Burnett Inlet on Etolin Island, approximately 30 miles south of Wrangell.  This is a remote site with access only by boat or float plane.  SSRAA took over the site, did extensive remodeling and repair and began to produce fish there in 1997.  Burnett is not a large facility, but is uniquely designed to work as a central incubation site for smaller sockeye projects, while the primary production from the facility is summer coho. 

Summer coho, simplistically this is a coho that behaves as if it were a sockeye.  These fish return as adults and enter lake systems in July and early August.  They ripen in the lakes and spawn in the fall at the same general time as a fall coho.  Burnett produces about 2 million summer coho of the Reflection Lake stock.  In the spring 1.7 million of these fish are moved as small fry to net pens in Neck Lake in Whale Pass on Prince of Whales Island.  The fish are reared until late fall or early winter.  Half of the fish are then released in Neck Lake as presmolt and half retained in the net pens without feed until spring.  Fish are again fed in net pens in the spring and are released in May so that they can leave the lake as smolt with the presmolt that over wintered in the lake itself.  About 300,000 of these fish are also reared to smolt size and released at Burnett Inlet in the spring of their second year.

Summer coho returning to Neck Lake are harvested in troll fisheries off Sitka though the primary harvest is in the gill net fishery in District 106 at the north end of Prince of Whales Island.  These fish are also harvested by sport anglers along their return route, though the primary sport harvest of several thousand fish annually is in a terminal fishery in Whale Pass below Neck Creek.  About 40% of the returning adults are taken for cost recovery by SSRAA at the Neck Creek site.  Up to 80% of the fish returning from the Burnett Inlet release are harvested by the commercial fleets.  The fish that return to the hatchery are used as broodstock.

Sockeye:  there are several sockeye programs at Burnett.  Burnett is used as a central incubation facility to produce Hugh Smith Lake sockeye in an ongoing effort to rehabilitate that stock.  Eggs (250,000) are collected at Hugh Smith Lake and taken to Burnett.  The eggs are incubated at Burnett and the fish are thermally tagged.  Fry are returned to net pens in Hugh Smith Lake where they are reared to smolt-sized fish.  They are released in Late July as adult sockeye begin to enter the system.  The fish over winter in the lake and leave as smolt the following spring.  In the summer of 2003 the adult escapement goal for Hugh Smith was met for the first time in a number of years.  Fish from this project are a significant part of the adult return.

McDonald Lake sockeye are also produced at Burnett Inlet.  These fish are intended to enhance the gill net fishery in District 106.  This project is still in its initial stages.  For the past 3 years 500,000 sockeye smolt have been released from the raceway at Neck Lake.  Beginning in 2002/2003 these fish will also be reared to yearling smolt and released from Burnett Inlet Hatchery.  We anticipate that at least 70% of the fish returning to each of these sites will be intercepted in the District 106 gill net fishery.  The fish returning to Neck Creek will be utilized for cost recovery while the fish returning to Burnett will be used as broodstock for the long-term project.  Sockeye should begin to return to Neck Creek in the summer of 2003 or 2004, depending on whether they mature as 2 or 3-ocean fish.  The first returns to Burnett will occur in 2005 or 2006.

SSRAA will attempt to expand sockeye production at Burnett Inlet so that 1 million smolts can be released at both Neck Creek and at the hatchery site.  The physical parameters of the site limit expansion to that number of smolt.

Crystal Lake Hatchery:  Crystal Lake Hatchery is located at the head of Blind Slough, 18 road miles south of Petersburg.  Crystal Lake is a State facility.  SSRAA operates Crystal Lake through a contract with ADF&G Sport Fish Division.  Current funding for the facility comes from Sport Fish, SSRAA and the SE Sustainable Salmon Fund.  Finding appropriate funds to operate the facility has been a challenge for a number of years, and will again be in question in 2005.

Crystal Lake is the oldest continuously operated salmon enhancement program in Southeast Alaska.  The program has changed very little through the years.  Crystal Lake is primarily a chinook facility.  Hatchery production is limited to its current level by the water source.  Crystal Lake produces approximately 1.4 million chinook smolts, 600,000 released at the hatchery site, 400,000 at the SSRAA site in Anita Bay and 400,000 at the SSRAA site in Neets Bay.  Crystal Lake also produces 100,000 coho smolts in mitigation for hatchery construction on Crystal Creek and the associated loss of natural coho production on that creek.

The broodstock used in the facility is the Andrews Creek stock.  This was the initial stock used at several sites in SE, those fish coming originally from Crystal Lake.  Today the stock is found at Gastineau Hatchery (DIPAC) and Medvejie (NSRAA).  This is currently important in the sense that shortcomings in broodstock collection are often met through cooperation between these hatcheries.

Crystal Lake chinooks are harvested in traditional troll fisheries as they return to the various release sites.  The returns to Anita Bay are also harvested in net gear rotational fisheries in the terminal harvest area.  The harvest in Anita Bay (similar to historic Earl West Cove numbers) may be as many as 10,000 fish.  Likewise, on a year of good survival, the combined troll harvest for all released from Crystal Lake can range to nearly that total.  The fish returning to Neets Bay are also taken in an early-season terminal net fishery and later cleaned up during SSRAA cost recovery activities.

Sport Anglers also harvest a significant number of these fish.  The fishery in Blind Slough, fish returning directly to Crystal Lake, is the most significant chinook bank fishery in SE Alaska.  These fish are harvested by casting from shore to fish holding in the slough.  Sport Fish Division estimates the usual annual harvest in Blind Slough at 4,000 fish.  This fishery has become increasingly important to Petersburg as the economy turns more toward tourism.  The Anita Bay return can be easily accessed by sport anglers from Wrangell as returning fish swim directly by the town.  Likewise, the chinooks returning to Neets Bay comprise a good part of the large adult chinook captured in the “north end” Ketchikan sport fishery.