Copper River commercial harvesters continued to harvest thousands of sockeye salmon in fishing periods stretching through late July, with the succulent reds weighing in on average at five pounds each – but the bulk of reds available in retail shops in the Anchorage area was coming from Bristol Bay.
Gillnetters in the Copper River brought in 86,092 sockeyes in the July 17 fishery, 32,990 sockeyes on July 21, and 23,223 reds on July 24, according to preliminary data compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G).
Shoppers on the hunt for fresh seafood were finding some weekly sale deals, like $15.99 a pound for Bristol Bay sockeye fillets at Carrs Safeway stores for card members, but $39.99 a pound for non-members.
Anchorage’s Fred Meyer, a Kroger company, had its Alaska red salmon on sale for $14.99 a pound.10th and M Seafoods and Costco warehouses offered their sockeye fillets for $13.99 a pound. Sockeye orders at 10th and M Seafoods were averaging 10-15 pounds, said manager Tito Marquez.
At New Sagaya, another popular Anchorage seafood shop, whole red salmon were $7.99 a pound, $3 off the regular price, and sockeye fillets were on sale for $13.99, $4 less than their regular price.
New Sagaya also had trolled coho salmon fillets from Sitka for $13.99 a pound and whole trolled silvers on sale for $7.99 a pound.
The famed Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle was offering whole five-pound coho salmon for $84.99 and fillets of those silvers for $24.99 a pound.
The online seafood purveyor FishEx in Anchorage this week lowered the price of its Copper River sockeye fillet “premium portions,” from $56.95 to $36.95 a pound.
As of July 29, ADF&G’s preliminary statewide harvest report showed a total of 89 million salmon – including over 48 million sockeyes, 30.3 million pinks, nearly 10 million chums, 402,000 cohos, and 135,000 Chinooks.
That constituted over 40% of the annual projection of anticipated salmon harvest for the state. Consistent with run timing by species, sockeye harvest accounted for the highest share of harvest to date, noted Simon Marks, a fisheries economist with McKinley Research Group, which produces in-season weekly commercial salmon harvest reports for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.
Sockeye harvests have now reached 90% of the annual projection, most of those fish coming from Bristol Bay, where this year’s annual harvest is expected to meet the pre-season annual projection of 53 million fish by the time the season closes.
In Prince William Sound, sockeye salmon harvests were still 53% below forecast, pink harvests were 14% below forecast, and Chinook harvests were 50% below forecast, but robust keta harvests were 328% above forecast and coho harvests were coming in at 1,950% above forecast, Marks noted.
Unlike the sockeye harvest, which typically peaks near the beginning of July, pink salmon harvest tends to peak in mid-August. While early season harvest of this species is currently below 2023 levels, harvest has only reached 20% of the annual projection and the next several weeks will be important in gauging the trajectory of this fishery in 2025, Marks said.
Southeast is historically the largest keta fishery by volume. Through this week, regional harvest was 53% below 2024, bringing statewide keta harvest down to just 9 million.
Southeast Chinook harvest data has been revised due to timing of fish data collection following the closure on July 4.
