"It was a mixed bag across the state," said Mike Plotnick, in the commercial fisheries division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, noting that while king runs were disappointing, the sockeye, silver and chum runs came in strong.
The overall harvest ranked 17th highest since statehood, and the numbers are still coming in, said Plotnick.
Fish tickets are still coming in to state fisheries officials and preliminary price information, average weights and poundage won't be released until November.
Still, it is significant to note that eight of the top 20 harvests overall have occurred in this century, Plotnick said. "We have seen some significantly large harvests in this century alone," he said.
These include the 2007 overall salmon harvest, the fourth largest since statehood, at 213 million fish, and the preliminary 2008 harvest, at nearly 139 million fish, compared to a forecast of 132.5 million fish, he said.
The king run was a major disappointment, with 305,000 harvested overall by commercial fleets, 55 percent below the forecast. The pink harvest was a disappointment in Southeast Alaska, where vessels harvested 15.6 million fish, after a forecast of 20.7 million pinks.
Prince William Sound fishers fared better, harvesting 40 million pinks, twice the forecast; and statewide, the total pink harvest was in excess of 80 million fish.
The statewide sockeye salmon forecast was 47 million reds, and preliminary counts show the harvest at just over 38 million reds, still in the top 20 harvests since statehood.
The statewide coho forecast was 4.4 million silvers, and harvesters brought in 3.3 million, which put the silver harvest at about 27th since statehood. The chum harvest, forecast at 18.7 million fish, came in at 16.5 million fish, still placing it ninth overall in chum harvests since statehood.
In the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim area, where the prized Yukon kings are critical to the economy, it was a devastating year. The forecast of 82,000 kings came in at about 28,000, allowing for some Kuskokwim River and Kuskokwim Bay harvests, but very few in the Lower Yukon.
Pink, sockeye and chum runs in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim waters also were disappointing. The pink forecast was for 501,000 fish, but the harvest stood at 90,000.
For sockeyes the AYK forecast was 245,000 fish, but only 113,000 were harvested; and for chums, the forecast was 1.7 million, but only 575,000 fish were caught. Cohos provided the good news for that region. The forecast was for a harvest of 368,000 fish and preliminary harvest figures alone far exceeded that prediction, showing some 393,000 cohos in the nets.
The king run was also disappointing in Bristol Bay. There the forecast was for some 98,000 kings, but the preliminary harvest was about 22,000, Plotnick said.
The pink forecast in the bay was for 56,000 fish, but the run came in at 38,000 fish, and the chum forecast of about 1 million fish came in at 735,000 fish. Sockeye harvests were forecast at 31.3 million and came in at 27.1 million, Plotnick said.
State fisheries officials in King Salmon have calculated the value of the 2008 Bristol Bay salmon harvests at about $113.3 million paid to fishermen. That figure, still preliminary, is 91 percent of the 20-year average and ranks 11th overall for that period, according to state fisheries officials.
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