Commercial pink, sockeye and chum salmon harvest deliveries to Prince William Sound processors rose minimally from July 23-28, reaching 1,440,000 fish, which included 99,000 pinks.
The overall statewide pink salmon harvest remained down by more than 80% from 2024. Forecasters with the McKinley Research Group, which produces in-season weekly salmon fishery updates for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, said there is still time in the season for the harvest to change substantially.
In addition to the pink salmon, the preliminary commercial catch for Prince William Sound through July 28 included 742,000 chum, 592,000 sockeyes, 4,000 cohos and 3,000 Chinook salmon.
Statewide preliminary data on deliveries to processors totaled 40,971,000 fish, including 34.7 million sockeye, 4.54 million chum, 1.6 million pink, 85,000 coho and 76,000 Chinook salmon, well below the pace of 2025 through this week.
Keta harvests were down 66% and pink salmon runs either low or late to arrive, according to the McKinley Research Group report.
Harvesters have caught 78% of the nearly 45 million-fish-projection, including nearly 90% of the forecast for Bristol Bay, the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.
Compared to 2025, sockeye harvest was down year-over-year for all regions except the Alaska Peninsula, with the strongest sockeye harvest to date since 2022, and a small harvest in the Kuskokwim Bay within the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region.
Average keta harvest run timing typically follows the sockeye peak, with a second, smaller keta salmon peak in the fall. Keta harvest was down year-over-year for all regions except Chignik and the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim through July 25. One-quarter of the statewide 17-million keta salmon was caught through week 30.
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