Alaska commercial salmon fisheries overview: recorded pink runs in Prince William Sound.

• Author: Kalytiak, Tracy
• Position: FISHERIES

The pink salmon fishery in Prince William Sound last year was a bust, so commercial fishermen entered this year's fishing season with trepidation. They quickly received a happy surprise.

"It was just very early in the season when the fish started returning in numbers in excess of what you'd expect for the date," said John Garner, vice president and director of the salmon group for Trident, which had to rush four floating processors to the Sound and summon long-haul tenders to carry their bounty of pinks to Ketchikan and Kodiak.

"The ocean survival rates were just extraordinary. There must have been extremely good ocean conditions for those fish."

The record-setting influx of pinks to Prince William Sound this summer is a key reason why the number of salmon caught in the state this year totaled more than 164 million--far exceeding the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's 2010 statewide forecast of 137.3 million fish.

Commercial vessels hauled in a total of 67.3 million pinks from Prince William Sound by mid-September; the previous record had been a 2007 harvest of 63.5 million pinks.

A total of 108.2 million salmon were caught in the Central region, which includes Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet and Bristol Bay. Fish and Game's forecast for 2010 had been 73.2 million salmon.

"Bristol Bay was a remarkably smooth fishery this year for as large of a run it was," Garner said. "It's usually a very compressed run. Most of these big years you wind up putting fishermen on limits to prevent catching more than you can handle. This year, the fish were spread out over more days. It was a wonderful fishery."

Garner said the slow, steady flow of Bristol Bay fish enabled Trident and other processors to choose which product form to package them in cans of varying sizes, filets or frozen headed-and-gutted salmon.

"The filets have more value; you use tall cans because you have to," Garner said. "When there are less fish in front of you, you're able to pick the product form that brings back the most value."

SOUTHEAST

Commercial fishermen in Southeast also saw an uptick in salmon catches, with a total of 35 million salmon caught. Approximately 23.4 million of those fish were pink salmon. Fish and Game's 2010 forecast--based on historical averages--had been 32 million fish.

"I was amazed we came as close as we did to the forecast," said Scott Kelley, Southeast's regional supervisor for Fish and Game's commercial fisheries division. "The harvest is from...