The 2014 Upper Cook Inlet salmon fishery netted the third-highest ex-vessel value in the past ten years. This was in spite of the foregone value of overescapements into the Kasilof, Kenai and some Mat-su rivers, and a lack of opportunity for commercial fishing on this season’s abundant chum and pink runs.

Alaska Journal of Commerce

Pricey reds rank Cook Inlet salmon value third-best in 10 years

Karl Kircher and Steven Bishop pitch setnet caught fish from a skiff near the mouth of the Kasilof River at 1 a.m. July 17 during an overnight commercial fishing period in Kasilof. The Upper Cook Inlet salmon harvest was valued at $35 million, the third-highest in the last 10 years.

Photo/Rashah McChesney/Peninsula Clarion

KENAI — If measured in sheer volume of fish, the Upper Cook Inlet commercial harvest of salmon was low: preliminary Alaska Department of Fish and Game estimates show it at about 20 percent less than the 10-year average harvest. But, when the $2.25 price per pound for sockeye is factored in, the ex-vessel value of the 2014 harvest was high at $35 million — making it the second year in a row that Cook Inlet commercial harvesters have seen lower-than-average harvests with higher-than-average values.

Last year, the commercial harvest in Upper Cook Inlet was valued at just more than $39 million, ranking it as the eighth-highest ex-vessel value since 1960, according to Fish and Game data. This year, commercial fishermen made just more than $35 million, coming in at the ninth-highest ex-vessel value since 1960 and the third-best in the last 10 years.

While commercial fishermen harvest all five species of Pacific salmon between the Northern District and Central District, which make up the Upper Cook Inlet area, sockeye salmon are the most valuable. More than 93 percent of the total value of the commercial fishery in the last 20 years has come from sockeye salmon.

But, the value of the sockeye harvest wasn’t spread equally among fishermen — a trend in recent years as Upper Cook Inlet setnetters find themselves on an increasingly restrictive fishing schedule due to low numbers of king salmon returning to area streams.

Between the two types of commercial fishing in Upper Cook Inlet, drift gillnetting boats caught approximately 1.47 million sockeye salmon, or about 64 percent of the total salmon harvest in Upper Cook Inlet. In 2013, drift fishermen caught about 1.65 million sockeye salmon, compared to the setnet harvest of 992,000 fish. In 2012, when setnet fishermen were shut down for the bulk of the season, drift fishermen took nearly 93 percent of the total salmon harvest.

Typically, harvest is more evenly split between drift and set gillnet fishermen, said Commercial Area Management Biologist Pat Shields in a previous Clarion interview. However, as sockeye salmon continue to return to the inlet in large numbers and king salmon numbers continue to drop, disparities in harvest between the two gear types have become more pronounced.

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