# Port Moller test fishery: Bristol Bay's early read on the sockeye run > The Port Moller test fishery is a research gillnet fishery that samples Bristol Bay sockeye at sea, about a week before they reach the fishing districts. Its daily catch index is a catch rate, not a forecast; read with ADF&G's genetic estimates, it shows how strongly the run is arriving and which rivers it is bound for. _Updated Oct 12, 2026._ The Port Moller test fishery is a research gillnet fishery that samples Bristol Bay sockeye at sea, about a week before they reach the fishing districts. Each day from about June 10 to mid-July, two chartered boats fish a fixed line of stations off Port Moller on the Alaska Peninsula, and the catch becomes a daily index of how many sockeye are passing, plus genetic estimates of which rivers they are bound for. The index is a catch rate, not a count of fish and not a forecast. Read with that in mind, it is the earliest in-season sign of whether the run is arriving the way the preseason forecast expected. ## Who runs it and where ADF&G started the test fishery in 1967 to gauge sockeye run strength about a week before the fish reached the districts. The University of Washington's Fisheries Research Institute ran it through the 1980s and 1990s with funding from Bristol Bay processors, and the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute (BBSRI), based in Dillingham, has run it since the early 2000s, with ADF&G doing the genetics and the scale aging. 2026 was its 60th season. The stations sit on a line from Port Moller toward Cape Newenham, on the far side of the bay. The boats fish the even-numbered stations, 10 nautical miles apart, from Station 2, about 35 nautical miles offshore, out to Station 24, about 145 nautical miles from Port Moller. BBSRI places the line 150 to 200 miles southwest of the inshore districts. Until 2018 the boats rarely fished past Station 10, and BBSRI later estimated that as much as 68% of the 2018 run passed beyond it. Two vessels have covered the full line since 2019; in 2026 they were the R/V Miss Leona and the R/V St. Andrew. BBSRI's [project page](https://www.bbsri.org/port-moller-test-fishery) carries a map of the stations and the districts. ## How a day's index is built At each station the crew makes one drift gillnet set of about half an hour, with a net of alternating panels in two mesh sizes. The sockeye catch is converted to a standard rate, fish per 200 fathom-hours: what the project's 200-fathom net would have caught fishing for one hour. That is the station index. The Daily Catch Index is the average of the station indexes along the line, with any station the boats could not fish filled in by a statistical model fitted to the surrounding days and stations. Here is the arithmetic for July 1, 2026, from BBSRI's catch update that evening. The twelve stations from 2 to 24 read 10, 192, 278, 277, 50, 6, 3, 6, 2, 5, 2 and 2. They add to 833, and 833 divided by 12 is 69.4, reported as a Daily Catch Index of 69. Most of the fish came from Stations 4 through 8, the inner third of the line. One hot station does not make a big day. On June 25, 2025, Station 8 indexed 605, the highest single value the project had recorded, and BBSRI reminded readers that run strength "must be assessed as the average signal across the full transect." The Daily Catch Index that day was 125. ## How the index is read Sockeye take about six to nine days to swim from the line to the districts, by BBSRI's estimate, so a strong day at Port Moller points to fish arriving inshore about a week later. On July 7, 2026, BBSRI put the travel times at 7.3 days to Naknek-Kvichak, 8.2 to Ugashik, 8.6 to Nushagak-Wood and 8.7 to Egegik. Turning index points into fish takes a second number, the return per index point: how many fish show up inshore, as catch plus escapement, for each point recorded at Port Moller. It can only be estimated in season, by lining up earlier index days against the catch and escapement that arrived one travel time later, and it does not hold still: fish swim deeper or farther offshore, weather cuts sampling short, and timing shifts. BBSRI's 2024 annual report says that since 2020 the daily index "has not reliably indicated the seasonal entry pattern" of the inshore run, and the project did not publish short-range forecasts of daily catch and escapement in 2024. What it delivers most dependably is the makeup of the run: the same report calls its stock composition estimates "the most reliable and arguably the most important information that the test fishery provides." ## Which rivers the fish are bound for Crews clip a fin from sampled sockeye, a lab on one of the boats genotypes the tissue at sea, and ADF&G's Gene Conservation Laboratory turns the data into stock composition estimates, issued as advisories through the season; there were 12 in 2026. The June 30 to July 1, 2026 estimate, from 647 fish sampled and 190 analyzed, put the Kvichak at 28.7%, Ugashik at 22.1%, Wood at 14.1%, Egegik at 13.1% and Alagnak at 10.8%. Each share carries a 90% confidence interval, and the intervals are wide: the Kvichak's ran from 20.1% to 38.0%. One release is a rough read; the pattern across several is the signal. ## How it differs from the forecast and the harvest Three numbers get mixed up in July, and they measure different things. - **The preseason forecast** is ADF&G's projection of the run from past returns, published before the season; the 2026 Bristol Bay forecast came out November 13, 2025. It does not change once fishing starts. This site's [forecast page](/forecast/preseason) carries it by area and species, and [how ADF&G forecasts salmon runs](/guides/how-adfg-forecasts-salmon-runs) explains how it is built. - **The Port Moller index** is a daily catch rate at sea, in index points, from about June 10 to mid-July. It shows how strongly fish are passing the line and, through the genetics, where they are headed. It is neither a count of fish nor ADF&G's forecast. - **The harvest** is the fish actually caught and delivered, counted in fish. This site tracks it from ADF&G's Blue Sheet, district by district, on the [Bristol Bay daily run summary](/run-summary/bristol-bay). Managers do not open or close a district on the test fishery alone. BBSRI's annual report says its data are "not the primary basis of decision making" for the district fisheries but an indication of overall and river-by-river run strength, read next to the catch and escapement counts inshore. How those reads become openings is in [Bristol Bay commercial fishing announcements, explained](/guides/bristol-bay-fishing-announcements-explained). ## A worked example: the 2026 season ADF&G's preseason forecast called for an inshore run of 44.1 million sockeye and a Bay harvest of 32.3 million, the in-area forecast this site's Bristol Bay pages measure against. The test fishery opened June 10. On June 18, after the first genetic estimate, BBSRI wrote that there was "no reason to believe the run is deviating from the preseason forecast with an average run timing." The Daily Catch Index reached its season high of 83 on June 27, and on July 1 BBSRI wrote that continued strength at the line "further increases the probability that the run will reach the preseason forecast or beyond." The last update went out July 11. The 2026 Daily Catch Index, as BBSRI reported it each evening: - June 11 to 17: 0, about 7, 4, 5, 14, 37, 9 - June 18 to 24: 80, 66, 26, 53, 72, 70, 78 - June 25 to July 1: 65, 48, 83, 35, 39, 59, 69 - July 2 to 8: 19, 21, 39, 21, 19, 54, 20 - July 9 to 11: 14, 6, 18 ADF&G's September 22 season summary put the 2026 inshore run at 45.7 million sockeye, 4% above the forecast. In 2025 the index hit 125 on June 25 and the inshore run came in at 56.7 million, 14% above a 49.8 million forecast. A bigger index went with a bigger run, but the number of fish behind each index point changes from year to year, which is why nobody reads a run size straight off the index. This season's Bay harvest stands at 29.7M fish sockeye, 92% of the 32.3M fish in-area forecast. [Chart: Cumulative Bristol Bay sockeye harvest against the 2026 in-area forecast (thousands of fish)](https://therun.news/run-summary/bristol-bay) ([data](https://therun.news/run-summary/bristol-bay.md) — chart image: https://therun.news/charts/run-summary/bristol-bay/chart.png) [Table: Bristol Bay fish counts 2026: daily harvest by district](https://therun.news/run-summary/bristol-bay) ([data](https://therun.news/run-summary/bristol-bay.md)) The chart and table above are this site's own Bristol Bay numbers, cumulative commercial harvest by district from ADF&G's Blue Sheet: the measured result the test fishery tries to see coming, one travel time ahead. ## Where to find the reports In season BBSRI sends a catch update each fishing evening, with every station's index and the Daily Catch Index, and posts it with the genetic and age updates on its [in-season data page](https://www.bbsri.org/inseason-data), which also has email and text sign-ups. ADF&G posts the stock composition advisories on its [Bristol Bay commercial salmon page](https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=commercialbyareabristolbay.salmon), and BBSRI's project page links an annual report for each season from 2010. There is no new index outside June and July; the next comes when the boats return to the line around June 10. The Run reports the test fishery's published numbers and ADF&G's harvest as released. It does not forecast runs or turn the index into a run size of its own. ## Related data + guides - [Bristol Bay fish counts: daily harvest by district](https://therun.news/run-summary/bristol-bay) - [Bristol Bay harvest](https://therun.news/district/bristol-bay) - [The preseason forecast](https://therun.news/forecast/preseason) - [How ADF&G forecasts salmon runs](https://therun.news/guides/how-adfg-forecasts-salmon-runs) - [Bristol Bay commercial fishing announcements, explained](https://therun.news/guides/bristol-bay-fishing-announcements-explained) - [Escapement in plain English](https://therun.news/guides/escapement-in-plain-english) ## Common questions ### What is the Port Moller test fishery? A research gillnet fishery run by the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute with ADF&G. Two boats fish a fixed line of stations off Port Moller from about June 10 to mid-July, sampling Bristol Bay sockeye six to nine days before they reach the fishing districts. It produces a Daily Catch Index and, through ADF&G's Gene Conservation Laboratory, estimates of which rivers the fish are bound for. ### Is the Port Moller index a forecast? No. It is a catch rate: the average, across the stations, of sockeye caught per 200 fathom-hours of net. Turning it into fish takes a travel time and a return per index point, and both shift within and between seasons; BBSRI did not publish short-range forecasts of daily catch and escapement in 2024 for that reason. ADF&G's preseason forecast is a separate number that does not change during the season. ### How long do sockeye take to get from Port Moller to Bristol Bay? About six to nine days, by BBSRI's estimate. On July 7, 2026 it put the travel times at 7.3 days to the Naknek-Kvichak District, 8.2 to Ugashik, 8.6 to Nushagak-Wood and 8.7 to Egegik. ### Where is the Port Moller test fishery? On a line of stations running from Port Moller, on the north side of the Alaska Peninsula, toward Cape Newenham. The boats fish even-numbered stations 10 nautical miles apart, from Station 2, about 35 nautical miles offshore, out to Station 24, about 145 nautical miles out, which BBSRI places 150 to 200 miles southwest of the Bristol Bay districts. BBSRI's project page has a map. ### Where can I see Port Moller test fishery results? BBSRI posts each evening's catch update, with the station indexes and the Daily Catch Index, on its in-season data page at bbsri.org during the season, and offers email and text sign-ups. ADF&G posts the genetic stock composition advisories on its Bristol Bay commercial salmon page. Annual reports for each season since 2010 are on BBSRI's project page. --- Canonical URL: https://therun.news/guides/port-moller-test-fishery-explained