Late or lame? On brink of derby, Seward stresses about silver salmon run

SEWARD — As the days count down to the Saturday start of the Seward Salmon Derby, fear has replaced anticipation in some quarters heading into one of Alaska's oldest and most popular fishing tournaments.

Anglers, charter boat captains, fishery biologists and Seward Chamber of Commerce officials are all asking variations of the same question: Where are the silvers?

Thus far this season, relatively few have ended up on the decks of charter fishing vessels or filleting tables at the Seward Small Boat Harbor. In fact, much of Southcentral seems gripped by a sluggish — or possibly tardy — coho run.

"I'd love to be surprised, but at this point I don't think it's happening," said Andy Mezirow of Crackerjack Sportfishing, who's in his 22nd year as a charter boat captain and sits on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. "It's the weakest salmon return I've seen in my time here."

"People get used to having a whole lot of silvers come in early, out in Pony Cove (at the head of Resurrection Bay)," added Bob Shafer, owner of the Seward News, who writes a weekly fishing report for the publication. "That just hasn't materialized."

Fewer baitfish?

Whether things will turn around by the time the derby kicks off this weekend remains unclear.

"We don't have any indicators to show whether it's a late run or a weak run," said Jay Baumer, a fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. "We have to sit around and wait.

"Other places are seeing weak returns so far, too. But to us, it's really too early to draw any conclusions."

Among the possible culprits behind a continued weak run is a diminished supply of bait fish, Shafer said. "There are reports of birds not laying eggs due to a lack of feed for the chicks, and this lack of bait could be a reason for the late silvers."

Mezirow raised the prospect of a "weird weather event last year … that affected the whole food chain" when water temperatures in the bay were unusually warm.

"We're not seeing herring come back as they have in past years, and I think there may be some correlation," he said.

But on Tuesday, a silvery glimmer of optimism flickered, according to Shafer, who has fished the bay for a quarter-century.

"There's some (silvers) showing with this last storm we had," he said, "finally fish are coming into the bay out at Eldorado Narrows.

"I think it's just beginning, actually. But they are late — a good three weeks late."

Eldorado Narrows is at the head of the bay between Fox Island and the Resurrection Peninsula. The fish were reportedly at a depth of about 75 feet there.

Lots of hatchery fish

Resurrection Bay is widely known for its silver salmon, but up to two-thirds of the returning coho were born in a hatchery and sent out for a year in the Pacific before returning, according to a report by state fisheries management biologist Dan Bosch.

Typically, well over 200,000 young coho hatchery fish are stocked by Fish and Game — though in 2014, the release slipped to 98,000 silvers. The number was back up to 279,000 last year — which are the fish that should be returning now.

In addition, the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association pumps up to 450,000 fry and 100,000 smolt into Resurrection Bay each year, said Gary Fandrei, executive director of CIAA.

"I wouldn't expect to see them in abundance yet," said Fandrei, who added that silvers seldom reach the Bear Creek before Sept. 1, after swimming the length of the bay, en route to spawning in Bear Lake. "Probably any day they'll be in the outer bay."

Harvests range widely from 9,700-135,500 a year, mainly by anglers in boats, according to Fish and Game.

Mezirow and Shafer both noted that derbies can be successful even if the fish are scarce. Size matters, not volume.

"It's a tournament," Mezirow noted. "It only takes one big one to win the thing. It's not about catching a limit. And there's some huge fish being caught. I think there are some monsters out there, some real bruisers. Just not that many."

If that proves true, it will mark a significant change from the small fish that characterized last year's derby. Until Jerry Bixby hustled in his 16.2-pound winner to be weighed in the final hours of the tournament, organizers were looking at the first sub-15-pound winner in a derby that stretches back to 1956.

"We've had late runs before," Shafer said. "It'll be fishing. You won't be able to drift and have everyone on the boat pull up fish, but that's not the way it is all the time."