Salmon Season Close to Wrap Up

Diana Gish/KMXT

Commercial salmon fishing is just about over for the year. KMXT’s Diana Gish has a wrap-up of the season:

With just a few boats still out, most of the numbers are in for this season’s commercial salmon fishery.

Joe Dinnocenzo is the assistant area biologist who helps manage salmon and herring fisheries in Kodiak.

While a few boats are still out scratching, Dinnocenzo says that the season is "more or less" over.

— (Salmon Wrap 1 "Well, It wasn’t … where you were.")

Generally, seiners and Alitak District setnetters fared better than westside setnetters. Dinnocenzo said that generally the westside didn’t have as much fishing time and didn’t catch as much fish as a result.

While much attention was given to the low number of kings, the numbers for other salmon varieties hit much closer to forecasts.

(Salmon Wrap 2 "At the beginning…did fairly well.")

Dinnacenzo also addressed the issue of the kings, who’s numbers were disappointing state-wide.

— (Salmon Wrap 3 "It goes beyond … this last summer.")

Inspite of those low king numbers most escapement goals were met.

— (Salmon Wrap 4 "We did achieve … the 16^th of July.")

With the close of this salmon season, Dinnocenzo is looking to ahead to the next one optimistically.

(Salmon Wrap 5 "Basically it looks … the years to come.")

This year’s total harvest: nearly 31 million salmon.

I’m Diana Gish.