The sockeye salmon are coming back smaller for the Newhalen River and Iliamna Lake, plus not a thick as they once did when I was younger.

The booming Bristol Bay salmon run has broken the record set just last year, while on the Yukon River, Chinook are too scarce to harvest.

"My husband and I have been dipnetting on the Kasilof since 2014. This year we noticed more small fish than usual and all but ~5 of the 35 fish we caught had parasites."

Bristol Bay’s 2021 sockeye run is the largest on record: 63.2 million fish have returned to the bay, breaking the 2018 record of 62.9 million.

Tim Sands, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game area management biologist, said he is hopeful the strong run throughout Bristol Bay will continue next year.

The size of salmon returning to rivers in Alaska has declined dramatically over the past 60 years because they are spending fewer years at sea, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

There is really only one thing to talk about in Chignik Bay these days: Where are the sockeye?

Sockeye are smaller in size and fewer in number this year than in recent years.