Alaska Commercial Salmon Harvest Reaches Nearly 92 Million Fish

Fishermen from the Alaska Peninsula to Southeast Alaska delivered more wild salmon to commercial fishing tenders during the past week, bringing the preliminary statewide commercial salmon catch to nearly 92 million fish.

That included some 41 million sockeye, 35 million pink, 14.8 million chum, 745,000 coho and 217,000 Chinook salmon.

Earlier this year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game had forecast a potential harvest of 135.7 million fish, including 39.5 million sockeye, 69 million pink, 24.3 million chum and 2.6 million coho salmon.

In the westward region, deliveries to Kodiak of 8.6 million fish included nearly 7 million pink, 1.2 million sockeye, 482,000 chum, 42,000 coho and 1,000 kings, while from the Alaska Peninsula the catch reached a new total of 4.8 million fish, including 2.5 million sockeye, 1.6 million pink, 596,000 chum, 83,000 coho and 8,000 kings.

Chignik harvesters brought their catch to a total of 1.3 million salmon, with 903,000 pink, 274,000 sockeye, 65,000 chum, 64,000 coho and 3,000 kings.

Southcentral Alaska harvests, which include Prince William Sound, Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet, were largely unchanged, with a preliminary total still hugging nearly 47 million salmon, including more than 36 million sockeyes.

Southeast region fishermen boosted their preliminary catch total to over 30 million fish, including upwards of 17 million pink and nearly 12 million chum salmon. Their catch also included 695,000 red, 486,000 coho and 197,000 kings.

The Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region, with no commercial fishing this year in the Yukon and Kuskokwim, has delivered only 15,000 salmon, including 10,000 from Norton Sound and 5,000 from the Kotzebue region.

Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle is no longer advertising fresh wild Alaska salmon online. Fred Meyer seafood counters in Anchorage had fresh fillets of coho salmon for $14.95 a pound, and Carrs-Safeway was sold out of their coho fillets, at $19.95 a pound.

Wild Alaska sockeye salmon steaks were $7.95 a pound at 10th & M Seafoods. Fresh coho salmon were for sale at New Sagaya stores in Anchorage at $15.99 a pound for fillets and $9.99 a pound for whole fish, which were weighing in at four and a half to five pounds.

The website for the online retail shop FishEx in Anchorage was offering premium portions of wild Alaska coho salmon for $14.95 a pound, plus Copper River kings for $99.95 a pound and Copper River sockeyes for $37.95 a pound.