Fishermen in Kamchatka are traditionally the first to start fishing salmon as the season opens. This year the Russian Far East salmon catch is expected to be more than 490,000 tonnes, making it the largest projected fishery in recent years.
The 2016 fishery came to 446,000 tonnes after an initial forecast of 332,000 tonnes and last year the catch totalled 351,000 tonnes.
The bulk of the fishery is pink salmon, with a 339,000 tonne quota split across five regions. Kamchatka’s west coast has a 152,000 tonne quota while the east coast has 65,000 tonnes. 30,000 tonnes are recommended for Amur and 38,000 tonnes for eastern Sakhalin. The Kuril Islands get a 24,000 tonne pink salmon quota. Altogether this provides the Russian domestic market with affordable fish.
The Pacific salmon quota is 101,000 tonnes divided across Amur, eastern Kamchatka, the mainland coast of the Sea of Okhotsk and western Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands.
The sockeye salmon fishery is predicted to be around 41,000 tonnes, with the main catch taken in the Petropavlovsk-Komandorskaya and Kamchatka-Kuril subzones.
