COSMIC CARNIVAL – Kasey Davis performs under black lights at Sitka Cirque studio Wednesday night as she rehearses for the weekend’s Cosmic Carnival shows. The shows are a production of Friends of the Circus Arts in collaboration with the Sitka Cirque studio. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

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Daily Sitka Sentinel

Poor Chinook Run Curtails Troll Season

By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    The Department of Fish and Game said today all spring troll Chinook and chum salmon fisheries will be closed effective May 29 until further notice,  because of an all-time-low forecast for wild king returns in Southeast.
    Terminal harvest area fisheries will remain open.
    “It’s pretty grim,” Fish and Game regional troll management biologist Grant Hagerman said. “Closing all of the spring fisheries is unprecedented – it hasn’t been done before. ... We’re making this closure to reduce harvest as much as we can on wild stocks.”
    The goal is to protect wild stocks regionwide, during a time when wild fish are more prevalent.
    “By moving part of the quota from the spring into summer we’re going to be harvesting that part of the quota at a time when the abundance of our wild Southeast Alaska Chinook stocks are lower,” Hagerman said.
    He said the decision was prompted by the record low numbers of kings seen “in-river” during the spring stock assessment in mid May. He said typically half the run has entered the Taku and Stikine rivers by the third week of May.
    “All indications from the stock assessment projects show that the Taku and Stikine king salmon runs will be well below the preseason forecasts and, ultimately, below the lower bound of each river’s escapement goal,” Hagerman said. “The lower bounds of the escapement goals for Taku and Stikine Chinook salmon are 19,000 and 14,000 fish, respectively.”
    Production from the two rivers has accounted for 80 percent of the Southeast Alaska wild king salmon abundance and correlates strongly with production throughout the region.
    This suggests “production in other Southeast Alaska Chinook salmon stocks will also be extremely poor,” Hagerman said. “With what we’re looking at in the wild systems we don’t have a harvestable surplus of wild fish.”
    On top of the poor “in-river indicators,” the hatchery component of the spring troll harvest to date has been low, Hagerman said.
    “The 2017 cumulative Alaska hatchery percentage of the spring harvest through statistical week 21 (of the calendar year) is 14 percent,” he said in today’s news release from F&G. “This compares to 5-year and 10-year averages for the same time period of 24 percent and 27 percent, respectively.”
    Fish and Game looked at the record low runs projected from the wild stock in-season assessment, and the below average contributions of Alaska hatchery fish, and made the call to close “until further notice” all 2017 spring troll Chinook and chum salmon fisheries at 11:59 p.m. Sunday, May 28.
    “Fishery openings announced in the spring troll news release May 19 are still in effect” through that time, Fish and Game said.
    Hagerman said Fish and Game anticipated returns of wild stocks wouldn’t be particularly great for spring, and imposed restrictions.
    “We tried to reduce time and area to reduce the incidental harvest of wild Chinook,” Hagerman said.
    The department manages in-season, and made the decision to announce the first-ever regionwide closure during the spring opening.
    “This weekend, we talked to the research staff, and unfortunately it looks quite a bit lower than the preseason estimate,” he said. “We are now looking at possibly the lowest on record.”
    There is no reduction in the overall quota of 154,880 king salmon for the year that started last October, and the summer troll fishery will open in July as planned.
    “The portion of treaty harvest that normally would occur in June will be harvested in the summer instead,” Hagerman said. “Moving part of the quota into the summer fishery when we’re at a reduced risk of harvesting wild stocks because the majority of the run will be in-river. ... We’re trying to manage the incidental catch of wild fish.”
    The sport fish division announced measures earlier this spring in an effort to ensure the escapement of wild kings. The spring king derby was canceled in Juneau; Wrangell, Petersburg and Ketchikan derbies all have area restrictions, bag limit restrictions or both.
    In Sitka, the harvest is more on non-Alaskan kings, or hatchery fish, during the derby, and will operate under present regulations, said Judy Lum, regional supervisor for the sport fish division. She said fishermen from all sectors appear to be concerned and supportive of efforts to conserve wild stocks.
    “Everyone is on board in supporting conservation measures,” she said. “It’s a hard time for everyone.”
    Bag limits for the Sitka derby is two per day for residents, one per day for nonresidents.
    Terminal harvest areas will remain open to troll gear as follows:
    From May 28 through June 17, the waters of Deep Inlet west of 135°20.75’ W. long., are open continuously to troll gear as part of the THA, with waters east of 135°20.75’ W. long., open to troll gear following the rotational schedule, with openings for troll gear on Saturdays. On June 18, all waters of the Deep Inlet THA will follow the rotational schedule.

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20 YEARS AGO

April 2004

The 7th Annual Honoring Women dinner will feature Roberta Sue Kitka, ANS Camp 4; Rose MacIntyre, U.S. Coast Guard Spouses and Women’s Association; Christine McLeod Pate, SAFV; Marta Ryman, Soroptimists; and Mary Sarvela (in memoriam), Sitka Woman’s Club.

50 YEARS AGO

April 1974

Eighth-graders Joanna Hearn and Gwen Marshall and sixth-graders Annabelle Korthals, Jennifer Lewis and Marianne Mulder have straight A’s (4.00) for the third quarter at Blatchley Junior High.

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