40.0°

But this year the odor of anadromous fish looking for a place to lay their eggs and die is more pungent, according to locals, fishermen, tourists, fisheries experts and just about anybody else you ask.

Tammy Davis of the state Division of Sport Fish said the smell has gotten so bad in some places the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has received phone calls asking if there's anything the state can do about it. She said one woman called in a report of "a lot of dead fish on the beach" and wanted to know who could help her with it.

Scott Kelley, commercial fisheries manager for Fish and Game, said the smell likely is worse because of a combination of factors. Warmer temperatures and a higher concentration of chum returning at DIPAC's Channel Drive hatchery, as opposed to other area hatcheries, likely have contributed to the increased odor, he said.

"We're having some really warm waters," Kelley said.

He said some creeks around Juneau have tested as warm as 22 degrees Celsius. Creeks in other years have tested in the single digits, he said.

"This is all speculation on my part," he said. "But they all seem logical and the cumulative effect may lead to smell."

Kelley said the rotting fish smell was particularly pungent in 1996, when the chum salmon return inexplicably doubled. He said the harvest for gillnet and seine fishermen was about 16 million that year. An average year brings in about 6 to 8 million, he said.

Rick Focht, director of research and evaluation for DIPAC, said he expects an average return of chum this year, but the final numbers are not in. But pinks may be a different story.

"I've heard anecdotally it's a good year for pink salmon," Focht said.

Focht acknowledged the increased salmon stink and said hatchery workers and tourists visiting the Channel Drive facility have noticed it too. "It's a common comment (from tourists)," he said.

Ida Finney, 69, a visitor from Kansas who is spending several days in Juneau working at the Eagle River Methodist Camp, said she's noticed the smell in town and out the road.

Juneau resident Ray Behnert, 60, who has lived in Juneau since 1976, said from the salmon's perspective it's the sweet smell of success.

"It indicates that you've made it home," he said. "The best thing to do is to put a clothes pin on for awhile until this passes."

He said the DIPAC hatchery isn't the only spot where stinky fish can be found.

"Go up to Waydelich Creek," he said. "When they bake in this kind of heat, it's all you can expect."

Focht and Kelley also said the pungent odor is not just around the DIPAC facility.

"I don't think it's just the channel either," Focht said. "I was talking to a co-worker who had driven out the road and he noticed that at every stream there was the smell of dead fish in the area."

Anthony Seifert, 32, who spent part of Wednesday afternoon down at the DIPAC fishing dock scoping out king salmon, grudgingly acknowledged that rotting fish are stinking up the town but added: "It's understandable. You live in a fishing town. If you don't like it, then move."

• Timothy Inklebarger can be reached at timothy.inklebarger@juneauempire.com.