Credit Mackenzie Mancuso/KDLG
The numbers
The bay keeps pushing the record higher as 64.2 million fish have returned to local waters.
Baywide harvest was 219,000 salmon as the season continues to wind down. Cumulative harvest for all of Bristol Bay is 39.2 million fish. Naknek-Kvichak district especially seems to be calming back down from their recent surge.
Escapement got a light bump despite the Naknek tower no longer reporting. 213,203 fish made it up the rivers, over half of which went to the Alagnak River. Across Bristol Bay’s nine counted rivers, the total escapement is 24.9 million fish.
Nushagak District
Yesterday’s harvest in the Nushagak matched the Wednesday’s numbers at 23,000 fish. Average sockeye per drift delivery were at 252 and the season total harvest is now 17.57 million fish.
Messages to the fleet
To Tom Huffer Sr on Egegik Beach, from Stella: No seats are available on any flights out of King Salmon on Alaska or Ravn. You have your reservations for the 26th as planned. The alternative might be Dillingham. Please turn on the phone so I can call. If anyone hears this on Egegik Beach, please pass this on.
To the hearty fishermen of the Vega!!
We wish you guys good fishing and a safe return to us in Salt Lake City & Flagstaff!! We are proud of y all.
Lizzie, Ron, Jesse, Ciera, the girls and Mom!!
Credit James Radon
Bristol Bay s sockeye run of 63.2 million is the largest on record
Bristol Bay’s 2021 sockeye run is the largest on record; 63.2 million fish have returned to the bay, breaking the 2018 record of 62.9 million.
This is the fourth time since 1952 that the bay’s run has surpassed 60 million sockeye.
Alannah Hurley is a commercial fisherman from Dillingham, and the executive director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. She said it’s an exciting time to be here.
“Breaking these records since the commercial fishery has begun is just a real testament to the stewardship for thousands of years that our people have taken very seriously that responsibility,” she said.
A season of rough fishing in the Naknek-Kvichak
The run is tapering off in the Naknek-Kvichak District. Travis Elison, the district’s Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s East Area Management Biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said fishing has been good, but the weather has been rough.
“It’s been a real stormy, windy year, with Southeast winds have been blowing the fish farther away from the set netters, and it sounds like the fish are running deep it sounded like, from talking to a lot of the fishermen. All of it just makes it harder for them to catch, he said.
Peter Pan Seafoods ups base price to $1.25 a pound for Bristol Bay sockeye
Peter Pan Seafoods has raised its base price for Bristol Bay sockeye to $1.25 a pound.
The company announced an initial base price of $1.10 in June, before fishing began.
The processor told its fleet it was upping the base price to $1.25 on Saturday the day after OBI Seafoods set its base price for that amount.
Travis Rowenfanz, the Bristol Bay manager for Peter Pan, said the company upped its price to compete with other processors.
“There were some other rumors out there that the other base prices were going to be posted at $1.25, so we wanted to make sure that we were competitive. So we bumped up to $1.25 to match what we were hearing out there in the other industry sectors,” Rowenfanz said on Monday.