The daily harvest of sockeye in the massive Bristol Bay commercial fishery topped 1-million fish on Sunday. Through Sunday the total catch Bay-wide is over 3.2-million sockeye.
The district that’s still leading the way is the Egegik District where fishermen hauled in another 276-thousand fish on Sunday to push the season total to 1.4-million sockeye. Fishermen in the Naknek-Kvichak District hauled in 200-thousand sockeye on Sunday to push the district total to 775-thousand fish. Another District that has featured good catches for this early in the season is the Ugashik District where another 304-thousand sockeye were taken on Sunday. That pushes the season total to 657.5-thousand fish. Sunday’s catch in the Nushagak District was 260-thousand sockeye to push the season total to nearly 365-thousand fish. Fish and Game is currently not reporting any commercial harvest in the Togiak District. Sockeye escapement continues to be strong across much of the Bay. Another 72.6-thousand sockeye were counted on Sunday to push the season total up to 343-thousand fish. Fish and Game is estimating that there are 60-thousand fish in the Egegik River that have not yet been counted as escapement. The escapement goal for the Egegik River is 800-thousand to 1.4-million sockeye. Sockeye escapement to the Kvichak River was counted at 11.6-thousand fish on Sunday to push the season total to 12.5-thousand sockeye. However, Fish and Game is estimating that there are another 200-thousand sockeye in the Kvichak River that have not yet been counted as escapement. For the Naknek River Sunday’s escapement was 16.3-thousand fish to push the season total to 82.2-thousand fish. Over in the Nushagak District another 198.7-thousand sockeye were counted as escapement to the Nushagak River on Sunday to push the season total to 490-thousand fish. The escapement goal for the Wood River is between 700-thousand to 1.5-million sockeye. Another 93.8-thousand sockeye were counted as escapement to the Nushagak River on Sunday to push the season total to 462.4-thousand fish. That’s within the escapement goal of 370 to 760-thousand sockeye. The Igushik River counting towers became operational on Monday and the counting towers on the Ugashik River are scheduled to be up and running on Wednesday. The Togiak River towers will be up and running on July 3rd. So far the total run to Bristol Bay, including catch and escapement, totals just under 5-million fish. Fish and Game reports that on average there were 1,377 sockeye per drift delivery in the Ugashik District on Sunday. In Egegik the number was 602 and in the Naknek-Kvichak District the number was 392. In the Nushagak District there were on average 816 sockeye per drift delivery on Sunday. All Bristol Bay driftnet fishermen are reminded that you must declare a district and register with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game by Tuesday.