Huge numbers of chum salmon returning to Yukon rivers

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Yukon, Alaska   

308,000 chum salmon were counted by a sonar at Pilot Station on Monday, more fish than biologists have ever seen pass the sonar in one day.

"That's a new record," Carl Pfisterer with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said Tuesday in Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association teleconference.

As of Monday, the summer chum run was up to an estimated 2.1 million and still climbing. Biologists who were expecting a run comparable to last year's 2.4 million are now predicting that as many as 4 million summer chums will return this summer.

"It's a lot bigger than we thought," said state commercial fisheries biologist Steve Hayes, who is in Emmonak at the mouth of the Yukon monitoring the run.

The only problem, Hayes said, is that there is practically no commercial market for summer chums at this point, which means the plethora of fish won't do fishermen much good. King salmon are the preferred fish for both subsistence and commercial fishermen in the lower and middle Yukon where the chums return.

Biologists are "pretty confident" that the Pilot Station sonar counts are accurate, based on catch rates in test nets on the lower river, he said.