Over 300-Thousand Sockeye Caught in Bristol Bay on Tuesday

Tuesday was the first big day of the season for the harvest of sockeye in Bristol Bay. Over 307.7-thousand sockeye were caught commercially to push the season total up to 664.7-thousand fish. Leading the way so far this season is the Naknek-Kvichak District where fishermen caught 250-thousand sockeye on Tuesday to push the District total up to 404.6-thousand. There was no harvest Tuesday in the Egegik District so the District total remains unchanged at 189.5-thousand fish. Tuesday’s harvest in the Nushagak District was 53-thousand sockeye to push the season total up to 59.7-thousand fish. The sockeye harvest in the Togiak District was 4.7-thousand on Tuesday to push the season total in the District up to 6.4-thousand. The Ugashik District remains closed to commercial fishing and the District total remains at 4.5-thousand sockeye. Now looking at escapement…. Another 64.1-thousand sockeye were counted in the Egegik River on Tuesday to push the season total up to 214-thousand. However, Fish and Game is estimating there are another 70-thousand sockeye in the Egegik River that have not yet been counted as escapement. Tuesday’s escapement to the Kvichak River was 5.5-thousand sockeye to push the season total up to 8.5-thousand. However, Fish and Game is estimating that there are another 150-thousand sockeye in the Kvichak River that have not yet been counted as escapement. The sockeye escapement to the Naknek River was counted at 132.3-thousand fish on Tuesday. That pushes the season total up to 272.5-thousand sockeye. Over in the Nushagak District the sockeye escapement was counted at 23.2-thousand fish on Tuesday to the Nushagak River, which pushes the total up to 74.3-thousand. The Wood River escapement was counted at 21.2-thousand fish to push the total up to 95-thousand. The counting projects on the Ugashik and Togiak Rivers are not yet up and running. The total sockeye run to Bristol Bay through Tuesday is well over 1.5-million sockeye. That includes the harvest, escapement and the in-river estimates for the Egegik and Kvichak Rivers. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game notes that there were on average 280 sockeye per drift delivery on Tuesday in the Naknek-Kvichak District. The number in the Togiak District was 83. The ongoing Port Moller Test Fishery reported a catch of 240 sockeye on Tuesday with 91 of those fish taken at station 4. 60 sockeye were taken at station 6 and 61 sockeye were taken at station 8. 10 fish were caught at station 10 and 18 fish were taken at station 2. The replacement index number for Tuesday was 47, which pushes the cumulative number up to 316. Tuesday’s catch produced a daily traditional index number of 118. That’s the highest daily number of the season and it pushed the cumulative index number up to 727. That’s well shy of the average index number of 858 for June 24th. Only 7 times in the last 24 years has the cumulative traditional index number been lower than this year’s 727 for June 24th. The interpretation for Tuesday’s catch notes that the data indicates that the sockeye run continues to build at the test fishery and is expected to peak in the next few days.