Kodiak's salmon catch fell a third below average, but the season paid more than usual

Kodiak's commercial salmon fleet caught about a third fewer fish than usual this summer, but the catch was worth more than average, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said Tuesday.

Processors paid Kodiak fishermen about $38.6 million for this year's salmon, above the 10-year average of $32.9 million, according to the department's season summary. It's based on prices estimated during the season, before final adjustments.

The fleet caught 15.6 million salmon, most of them pinks. That's well below the 10-year average of about 22.9 million and less than half of last year's 37.1 million.

Fewer seiners fished. About a third of Kodiak's purse seine permit holders delivered fish, compared with 42% on average. Seiners who did fish grossed about $267,000 each on average, compared with about $180,000 over the past decade.

There's no commercial fishery aimed at king salmon in the Kodiak area, but kings get caught in nets set for sockeye and pinks. To protect two struggling westside king runs, the department kept the westside closed to commercial salmon fishing from June 1 to July 5.

Despite the closure, just 308 kings made it up the Karluk River, against a goal of at least 3,000, and 807 up the Ayakulik, against a goal of at least 4,800. Both were the fourth-lowest counts on record, though up from 93 at Karluk and 444 at Ayakulik last year.

Holding nets back also let more sockeye up the Ayakulik. Its early sockeye run topped its goal by nearly 215,000 fish, which the department tied to the king restrictions.

The department also said it no longer has the money to monitor most Kodiak coho runs, and that its pink salmon count is a minimum because too few aerial surveys were flown.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries is tentatively scheduled to take up Kodiak finfish rules Jan. 5 to 8 in Kodiak. One proposal, from the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, would write recovery targets for the Karluk and Ayakulik kings into regulation. The runs "have now declined to critical low levels where long-term conservation is in question," the group wrote.