While specific harvest totals for this season are not available, in recent years, a highly productive season in Washington has yielded between 1.1 to 1.4 million chum salmon.

Last year, Washington’s total chum salmon harvest totalled only 185,000 fish — 59% below the previous five-year average and 76% below the previous ten-year average.

In Alaska, the salmon season has concluded with fishermen just managing to surpass the 100 million fish mark, potentially marking it as the lowest total salmon catch in Alaska since 1988.



For Alaska’s chum salmon, although only harvesting 75% of the forecast, this harvest of over 18 million fish still amounted to higher than both five and ten-year averages - an estimated harvest of 54,000 metric tonnes at an average fish size of 6.5 pounds.

Regarding fish sizes, of countries that produce significant amounts of chum salmon, Washington stands above the rest at almost 2 pounds more than Alaska, Russia, and Japan.

In Russia, the salmon season has ended with about 230,000 metric tonnes harvested, potentially setting a record low. Specifically, for chum salmon, the harvest was only 36,000 metric tonnes — 56% below the previous five-year average and 64% lower than the ten-year average.

In Japan, recent reports from Hokkaido indicate that approximately 12 million fall chum salmon have been harvested, amounting to an estimated 37,000 metric tonnes - 40% of the previous five-year average, and 55% of the ten-year average. With the majority of Hokkaido's catch typically consumed domestically, Japan may need to rely more on imported chum salmon due to this year's lower harvest.



In the marketplace, our general pulse right now is that there is chum salmon available in the market still.

Our recommendation is to not hesitate to secure chum salmon offers as product becomes available, given this year’s global supply could be short 80,000 metric tonnes when compared to the previous five-year average.

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