Prince William Sound coho salmon harvests climbed to 143,120 fish last week, including 99,951 from Copper River drift gillnetters, with retail prices in Anchorage ranging from nearly $16 a pound for fillets to $7.95 a pound for whole fish.
As of Sept. 10, the preliminary total Copper River salmon fishery catch stood at 1.4 million sockeye, 99,951 coho, 31,630 chum, 8,868 chum and 3,891 pink salmon. The preliminary statewide commercial salmon catch was 95 million fish, including 41.2 million sockeye, 37 million pink, 15.3 million chum, 1.12 million coho and 218,000 king salmon.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) on Sept. 6 announced 24-hour openers for the Copper River, Bering River and Eshamy districts for Sept. 9, but said that harvestable surplus in the Coghill District was anticipated to no longer be predominantly pink salmon and that drift gillnet was anticipated to be the only legal commercial salmon fishing gear for the remainder of the season.
“With the Alaska commercial salmon season nearly over, year-to-date total harvest of fewer than 100 million salmon is 70% of the pre-season forecast, and down 34% from 2023 (2022 for pinks),” said Sam Friedman — who produced this week’s in-season preliminary Alaska commercial salmon update for the McKinley Research Group on behalf of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.
This was the McKinley Research Group’s final salmon harvest update for 2024.
“Weekly harvests of about 100,000 fish have been trickling in for sockeye (mostly in Kodiak) and coho salmon in recent weeks but have dropped off for the other three species,” Friedman said. “As the latest-running species, coho salmon volumes are the most likely to continue to increase in the remaining weeks of fishing.”
According to the trade press reports wholesale prices are up this year for Alaska sockeye salmon, due to lower harvest volumes and inventories. Also, because the fish being caught are smaller this year, supply is especially limited for four to six-pound fish.
Commercial harvest fell 90% in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim (AYK) region this year, Friedman noted.
“The AYK has consisted almost exclusively of the farthest-north districts in recent years because of run collapses on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers,” he said. “Most of this year’s AYK harvest took place in Norton Sound, with only 6,000 fish caught in Kotzebue. While AYK has never had a large salmon harvest from a statewide perspective, commercial fishing has historically been a significant part of the region’s limited cash economy.”
As of Sept.10, ADF&G’s 2024 Preliminary Alaska commercial salmon harvest Blue Sheet showed the overall harvest from the central region — including Bristol Bay, Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound — stood at 47 million fish, including 36.3 sockeye, 8.8 million pink, 1.8 million chum, 173,000 coho and 8,000 kings.
The southeast region’s catch stood at nearly 33 million fish, led by nearly 19 million pink, plus 12.3 million chum, 763,000 coho, 722,000 sockeye and 198,000 kings.
In the westward region — including the Alaska Peninsula, Chignik and Kodiak — deliveries to processors totaled more than 15 million fish, including 9.6 million pink, 4.2 million sockeye, 1.2 million chum, 213,000 coho and 12,000 king salmon.
