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Division: Commercial Fish
Title: McLees Lake salmon escapement monitoring report, 2012-2017.
Author: Lipka, C. G., and E. K. C. Fox.
Year: 2017
Report ID: Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Fishery Management Report No. 17-49, Anchorage.
Abstract: A fish counting weir was installed and operated in the McLees Lake outlet during June and July of 2012?2017 by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) to enumerate sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka escapement into McLees Lake. Escapement was enumerated through a picket weir daily from early June through late July. The total sockeye salmon escapement through the McLees Lake weir in 2012 was 15,111 fish, in 2013 was 15,688 fish, in 2014 was 12,424 fish, in 2015 was 20,248 fish, in 2016 was 39,892 fish, and in 2017 was 13,195 fish. In 2012, personnel issues delayed the installation of the weir until July 10. By this time, a large portion of the escapement had already entered McLees Lake and the missed escapement was interpolated. Sockeye salmon escapement met the lower end of the goal by July 1 in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, so emergency orders were issued by department staff to reduce waters closed to subsistence salmon fishing to the outlet stream terminus of McLees Lake. In 2017 sockeye salmon escapement had not met the lower end of the escapement goal by July 1. Subsequently, the department issued emergency orders extending the regulatory closed waters within 500 yards of the stream outlet terminus with the ocean shoreline to subsistence fishing until July 22. Sockeye salmon subsistence harvest in the Reese Bay (Wislow Island) area near McLees Lake ranged from 48% to 89% of all Unalaska Island sockeye salmon subsistent harvest from 2012?2016. Subsistence harvest data from 2017 is still being received and was not finalized by the time of this report. Sampling for zooplankton was conducted at one station in each year to assess freshwater rearing conditions.
Keywords: sockeye salmon, ASL, subsistence, McLees Lake, Unalaska Island, Oncorhynchus nerka.