Southeast Alaska Trolling Fleet Closing In On 1 Million Coho Harvested

After a turbulent offseason that saw commercial king salmon trolling closed but then restored, the Southeast Alaska trolling fleet is closing in on a massive number of harvested coho salmon. Here’s more from KCAW radio:

“You know, this year will be the first year in probably five or six years that the trollers are looking to catch over a million cohos,” said Grant Hagerman, the area troll management biologist for Southeast Alaska. Chum runs are largely produced by hatcheries. And although chum runs were strong, the price of chum collapsed, forcing the fleet to reset, and shift its attention to coho.

“With the in-season collapse of that market, it changed things quite a bit and so effort dropped,” said Hagerman. “And with chinook closed, a lot more effort turned back to coho that we didn’t really have last year. We didn’t reach our chinook allocation, and the coho catch was down from season, because we had a third of the fleet that was fishing hatchery, chum salmon for a third of the summer. So, yeah, very different this year.”

In just the last few weeks, catch rates for coho have been more than double the long-term average – not just for trollers, but for gillnetters, too. And the department is seeing good escapement, as the coho who manage to get by the hooks and the nets are reaching their natal streams in strong numbers.