The commercial fishing season ended on October 5th in the Lynn Canal, and the count is in. This year the fishing was good, and prices too. It was a welcome surprise, after a few years of disappointing numbers.
Here is Nicole Zeiser, area management biologist for the division of commercial fisheries at Fish and Game,
“The fishermen did well, and were happy this season, we had a district-wide harvest of 1.3 million fish, which is just slightly under the ten year average of 1.5 million fish. We met all of the escapement foals this year, except we are still waiting on the final Chinook salmon escapement tabulation.”
Here are the approximate numbers:
284 000 Sockeyes were caught, which makes this one of the best years since statehood.
962 000 Chums were caught, which is 213% above the ten year average.
16 000 Cohos, that is slightly below average,
and it was a low year for Pink salmon, at 47 000 the catch was about a fifth of the ten year average. This is a region-wide low number for the species.
600 King salmon were caught, the species is still in recovery, and there are rules aimed at strengthening the population. For the fifth year in a row there was reduced fishing time in some areas, gear restrictions and night closures. These measures were in place for the first few weeks of the season. Despite these restrictions the overall harvest was good.
Here is commercial fisherman Rafe Mc Guire:
“We had a pretty solid season, it was fun, it was nice to have a good one after a few years of bad seasons, the red run was fantastic, especially up the Chilkoot, it went on for weeks, it was great just like the good old days!”
