Fishermen wondering about this year’s pink return in Lower Cook Inlet will have to wait another week to get their answer, but so far, the signs are good.
Fishermen only harvested about 5,000 pinks on the outer coast of the lower peninsula in 2016. That was a large swing from a record harvest in 2015 with over 4 million fish. Those numbers have thrown a wrench in the five-year average.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is also waiting to make a judgment on the run because of how many fish made it upstream to spawn in 2015. Escapement goals were exceeded in several systems. Too many fish in a stream or river can actually damage future returns, and the pinks returning this year are the fish that hatched in 2015.
Set gillnetters in the southern district near Homer started seeing pinks in their nets in mid-June, about two weeks early. Gillnetters have harvested about 15,500 fish so far. Seining for both the southern and outer district opened Monday, and boats are currently fishing 16-hour openings on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
More openings are expected if the run continues to grow. Meanwhile, commercial set and drift netters on the west side of Upper Cook Inlet saw another regular fishing period closed Thursday, as the sockeye return to the Kenai river continues to creep in. Counts have actually picked up the past couple days and the cumulative number is twice what it was just a week ago, but at a little over a half a million fish as of Wednesday, the run still has a way to go before hitting escapement goals. The Department will likely resume commercial fishing again if and when the run hits 900,000.