Bristol Bay Sockeye Run Trending Toward Big 2025

The Alaska Beacon has some promising news on the 2025 Bristol Bay sockeye run. Here are some details:

The Bristol Bay sockeye run is expected to total 51.21 million fish in 2025, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s preseason forecast, issued last week.

That is 38% more than the long-term average of 37.07 million, calculated from 1963 to this year, the department’s forecast said. However, it is 16% smaller than the most recent 10-year average, a period that included extremely large runs and consecutive records in 2021 and 2022.

Next year’s run is expected to support a sockeye salmon harvest of 36.33 million fish, according to the department’s forecast.

The forecast is based on models that consider the relationships between different age classes of fish, past performances and other factors. The calculations are complex, the department said in its forecast statement, and the resulting estimate is 51.21 million sockeye is within a range of 37.02 million to 65.6 million fish.

Here’s a link to the ADFG forecast, but as the Beacon says, it’s unclear how much an economic boon the lofty projections could yield:

Payments to fishers for their salmon upon delivery, known as the ex-vessel value, totaled $128.1 million this year, down from the 20-year average of $193.4 million. However, this year’s total value improved over the difficult year prior, when the ex-vessel value was only $117.4 million.

The value of this year’s Bristol Bay sockeye salmon harvest was also hurt by what turned out to be a record-small average fish size.