Progress of salmon season in August-September 2007

Favourable situation on the salmon grounds in the fishing season 2007 has enabled the Russian fleets to harvest more than 260,000 tonnes of salmons to August 2007, fishery sources in Vladivostok told http://www.fishnet-russia.com/ (https://www.fishnet.ru/).

In the first half of August the pink salmon fishery in the East Kamchatka got closed with the area's total harvest amounting to 70,000 metric tons. The number of seines decreased to 5 and most of the seines were removed from the grounds already in the first five days of the month due to absence of fish.

In early September 2007 the fishery in the Okhotsk district of the Khabarovsk Territory got closed. Due to a number of reasons the salmon fishery in the area was not conducted in September, though the runs of autumn chum salmon could have sustained catches of 60-80 tonnes along the Magadan coast and more than 300 tonnes in the Okhotsk area.

Pink salmon runs to the Iturup waters were extremely early, already in the first days of August there was a need in larger receiving capacities. By the end of the first ten days of the month the Russian fishermen harvested more than 20,000 tonnes in the area.

The pink salmon fishery in the Terpenia Bay of Sakhalin was fairly active in the course of the month. The bulk of harvested fish was landed for onshore processing. The onshore companies received ca.60,000 tonnes of pinks in August 2007.

The second surge of pink salmon runs to the spawning grounds in the eastern coast of Sakhalin started from the second half of August. The pink salmon harvest through the month amounted to more than 40,000 tonnes.

Due to good runs of salmons and exhaustion of the catch quotas the fishery officials efficiently increased quotas of sockeye in the Kamchatka-Kurile subarea, pink salmon in the East Sakhalin subarea and in the South Kurile waters.

The below table covers provisional figures on salmon catches in the Russian Far East Basin as per 31 August 2007.

September outlook

According to the scientific forecasts, in September the salmon fishery will come to an end in the Karaginsk subarea. Pink salmon and chum salmon will be also harvested on the coho grounds with the coho salmon runs to grow less strong every five days. The total harvest of coho salmon can reach 800 tonnes.

In September 2007 in the East Sakhalin area pink salmon will run mostly towards the island's southeast, but already in the first ten days of September the pink salmon fishery in the islands will be completely finished.

Early September is the time when the abundant concentrations of pink salmon finish running off Iturup and Kunashir. In September pink salmon runs to the south Kuriles will contain larger sizes than in August. The average size of harvested pinks in the course of the month will be 47.5 cm and 1.44 kilos. In September the fishermen can start harvesting chum salmon in the inshore waters of Iturup and Kunashir. The first runs of the species were observed in late August - early September on the pink salmon grounds. In the course of the month catches of chum salmon are expected to grow, the abundant run of chum salmon for spawning is forecasted in the second ten days of October. In September catches of chum salmon in the area will amount to 40-50 tonnes according to the forecast.

Coho fishery in the basin of the Bolshaya River of the Kamchatka-Kurile subarea is also possible in September 2007. Daily rates are forecasted to be the highest possible in the start of the first ten days of the month. The total harvest of coho salmon is expected at 150-200 metric tons.