Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the Macaulay Hatchery. It’s Macaulay, not Macauley. This article has been updated to reflect the change.
King salmon fishing near Macaulay Hatchery will close Sunday, according to a release from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
ADFG made the announcement Tuesday. The closure is meant to protect the hatchery’s king salmon brood stock, or the fish they need to reproduce another year of hatchery king salmon. Macaulay Hatchery, run by Douglas Island Pink and Chum Inc., needs the eggs and sperm from 500 king salmon to meet brood stock goals.
They capture those fish using a fish ladder, a series of concrete pools that leads salmon up to the hatchery and is designed to mimic a fresh-water stream. Macaulay has captured only one king salmon with their fish ladder so far this year, said Operations Manager Brock Meredith in a Tuesday phone interview. But it’s still early. In a normal year, the bulk of their brood stock in the first two weeks of August, Meredith said.
“We don’t expect to see that many up the ladder at this point,” Meredith said. “We’re hoping to have brood stock in early August.”
With only a small number of wild and hatchery king salmon returning to the Juneau area this year, fishery managers are “exercising caution” in closing the area down, Meredith said. In the waters 200 yards offshore between the end of Channel Drive and a point near the Samson Tug and Barge property, fishing and snagging will be prohibited until Aug. 15. It could be opened up earlier than that if Macaulay gets its brood stock.
Meredith is in close contact with ADFG, he said. Once brood stock goals are met, Meredith will inform ADFG that they have the fish they need. ADFG might lift the closure then.
“As soon as we get the last fish we need, we’re going to call up Dan (Teske, sport fish manager) and say yeah we’ve got them,” Meredith said.
If Macaulay doesn’t get enough brood stock up their ladder, they could borrow eggs from other Douglas Island Pink and Chum hatcheries. Seining fish at Fish Creek, where DIPAC releases king salmon, is a third option should they not meet brood stock goals.
There are no plans for further closures in the Juneau area at this time, said ADFG Area Management Biologist Dan Teske on Tuesday. ADFG doesn’t yet know how many king salmon have returned this year to spawn on the Taku River, the Juneau area’s largest king salmon spawning habitat. Preseason estimates projected a record-low 4,700 adult king salmon to return to the Taku River this year. Early, anecdotal indications are that returns might be slightly better than predicted, but still low.
ADFG will have an estimate out in August, Teske said, when results will become available for in-season mark-recapture studies and aerial surveys.
• Contact reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 and kgullufsen@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @KevinGullufsen.
