Wild Salmon Harvest in Alaska Nears 84 Million Fish

Commercial pink salmon harvests in Alaska rose by nearly 7 million fish this past week, pushing the overall humpy catch to 21,324,000 fish, and the statewide total of all five species of salmon to 83.9 million fish.

In Southeast Alaska deliveries of 13,504,000 fish included 7.4 million humpies, 4.5 million chums, 816,000 silvers, 628,000 sockeyes, and 240,000 Chinooks, up from last week’s overall catch of 8.9 million salmon.

Bristol Bay harvests reached 38.5 million salmon, up by about 1 million fish from the previous week, including 37.5 million reds, while Prince William Sound saw its deliveries to processors reach 13.8 million salmon, up from 11.9 million salmon just a week earlier.

And the chums and humpies kept coming on the Lower Yukon, pushing the harvest total there to 658,000 chums, 127,000 humpies and 2,000 cohos, up from 599,000 chums, and 127,000 pinks on July 26.

On the Alaska Peninsula, deliveries to processors climbed to a total of 9.3 million fish, including 5.6 million sockeyes, 3 million pinks, 458,000 chums, 174,000 silvers and 9,000 kings. Chignik’s overall catch rose from 1.2 million to 1.4 million fish, including more than 1 million reds, 83,000 chums, 80,000 humpies, 46,000 cohos and 14,000 kings.

At Kodiak, processors received nearly 1 million more fish, bringing Kodiak’s total catch to 14 million salmon, including 8.3 million sockeyes.

With the Copper River season winding down, Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle was still offering whole fresh Copper River sockeyes for $43.96 per fish, and fresh Copper River sockeye fillets for $20.99 a pound, plus fresh whole wild Alaskan king salmon for $20.99 a pound and fresh wild Alaskan king fillets for $35.99 a pound. Tenth & M Seafoods in Anchorage had fresh wild sockeye fillets for $8.95 a pound, fresh wild Chinook steaks for $13.95 a pound, fresh wild king fillets for $16.95 a pound, and fresh wild sockeye steaks for $7.95 a pound.