Fishing Updates

July 9, 2006

The numbers are beginning to look like more normal weeks now.  The average weight of filleted fish was essentially are our long-term average.  The spread in weight on halibut was what we expect in a normal week.  For the past two weeks we have been finding more larger halibut even though the smaller halibut, in large schools, are still present.  We have five halibut taken over 100 pounds.  The largest was 145 pounds.  Also, the number of fish weighing 40- to 60-pounds increased significantly.  The bigger fish always push the take-home weight up.  Another encouraging factor was that this week had big tides making it difficult to fish in some areas because of strong currents but still the catch was up.

The number of halibut caught actually decreased, but that was mainly the result of people limiting quicker and then going to fish for salmon.

The catch of silvers doubled from the previous week.  Chums declined slightly, and the pink harvest doubled.  The runs of both silvers and pinks continue to look strong for this summer.  The pinks are large which usually comes when the runs are smaller, but this is not true this year.  We have lots of pinks.

The largest silver was nearly 15 pounds and there were numerous fish in the 10-12 pound range.  As the week progressed the proportion of silvers in the daily catch increased.  We expect the pink run to hit it's peak in the next two weeks and report for the outside fisheries sound like there are still lots of them coming.

We caught 3 kings but they were essentially just incidental catch.

— Doc

Previous Reports:

• July 2, 2006
• June 25, 2006
• June 19, 2006
• June 11, 2006
• June 4, 2006
• May 28, 2006
• May 8, 2006
• May 4, 2006
• 2005 Fishing Season