During the July 14 Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group meeting, state fishery biologist Sean Larson showed a graph representing the chum run so far this season. It was basically a flat line.
“So the story remains the same for chum. It s an incredibly small run,” Larson said.
It’s the smallest chum run ever recorded for the river. During the July 14 working group meeting, Larson said that the chum escapement looked to be about a quarter of what it was at this point last year, and last year was a low, late chum run.
On the bright side, numbers for sockeye, or red, salmon have been strong this year. Working group member Barbara Carlson provided this fishing report from Sleetmute.