Kodiak’s pink salmon harvest is up by about 36% compared to the 2023 season, according to the most recent data from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. So far, over 33 million fish have been caught around the archipelago. Odd years are typically bigger seasons for pink salmon because of their two-year life cycles. And numbers are down for nearly every other region in the state this year.
James Jackson, an area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said it’s the third largest pink salmon harvest on record for Kodiak so far.
“If we catch a couple hundred thousand more pinks on the tail end of this fishery, it’ll be the second largest pink salmon harvest ever for the Kodiak area,” he said.
That’s in spite of the fact that some areas were closed earlier this month after a fishing tender spilled thousands of gallons of fuel near the Kitoi Bay Hatchery on Afognak Island – to the north of Kodiak. But Jackson said other areas nearby were open and the fuel was cleaned up or dispersed within days.
“We didn’t allow fishermen to fish while monitoring the fuel oil spill there and it seems to have all cleared out, and we were able to continue to harvest the fish so that we didn’t lose a lot of opportunity on those hatchery fish,” the biologist said.
Kodiak’s sockeye season has been more mixed though.
Harvest for the species is up slightly from last year according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, but is significantly lower than estimated harvest numbers in both 2023 and 2022.
The Ayakulik River, near the south end of Kodiak Island, had its highest escapement counts in at least the last 10 years. Jackson said over 400,000 sockeye came through the weir before it was pulled in mid-August.
But the area was closed early in the season, in part to allow more Chinook up river amid record low returns in recent years.
“With the early king salmon restrictions, we likely exceeded our escapement goal down there – missed out on a lot of opportunity to harvest fish,” Jackson said.
Despite the protections for kings, Jackson said king counts were still near record lows in both the Ayakulik and Karluk Rivers. The species has had remarkably low numbers across the entire state, leading to fishing restrictions and closures in other regions too.
“Even despite having the more than month-long closure on the west side for conserving king salmon, we still came in near record low king salmon escapement to both Karluk and Ayakulik,” Jackson said.
Only 93 Chinook made it past the Karluk weir this year as of Monday – 17 more fish than the record low last year. Most of Kodiak’s Chinook runs in the last 10 years number over 2,600 fish.
Jackson said sockeye runs in the other three nearby rivers on the southern side of the island – also major sockeye runs on the archipelago – also had lower returns.
“Karluk early run was weak, Frasier was weak, and Upper Station's early run was – I’d classify it as weak,” he said.
Sockeye escapement counts on all three rivers were below the 10 year average for this time of year, according to Monday weir counts.
Early data is pointing towards big numbers for silver salmon so far around Kodiak, but there’s still a few weeks left in the season.
