We got some numbers wrong on the Copper River opening, and just wanted to set the record straight. In our initial story, filed prior to the season opening, Laine Welch reported that "Mangers predict a first catch of about 52,000 sockeye salmon and 8,000 kings"-- Unfortunately, that made it into our news summary on Tuesday, a few hours after the opening, as a statement that catches were 52,000 sockeye and 8,000 kings.
Some people here at the NFI meeting in Florida told me that a number of people were out looking for Copper River salmon to buy on Tuesday, partly based on our reports of volumes, and they couldn't find any.
On Wednesday, we corrected the numbers to the actuals:
• 1,384 kings
• 21,274 reds
We got a couple of emails pointing out our mistakes, and wanted to acknowledge them. It's always dangerous to take salmon predictions at face value, and we should have been more careful to label them as such.
Also, it appears that most of the first 32,000 lbs. of fish that landed in Seattle to much fanfare belonged to Ocean Beauty-- so others looking for it were out of luck. Finally, Alaska airlines, which had a lot of flights standing by, did not make nearly the number of runs they initially said they would, as the fishery was slower than expected.
There is another opening today, and the number of kings will presumeably increase. No predictions, though.
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