The statewide harvest of wild Alaska salmon rose to nearly 59 million fish in late July, up 9 million fish from a week earlier, with the big increase in catch coming from Cook Inlet, Southeast Alaska and Kodiak.

The harvest in Upper Cook Inlet alone was at 3.5 million salmon, including 2,981,000 sockeyes, compared with 1.1 million reds the previous week. The fish were being caught by drift gillnetters, while Cook Inlet set netters were shut down by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to protect the escapement of king salmon moving north on the Kenai River.

In Southeast Alaska the salmon harvest rose from 5.6 million fish to 7.8 million salmon of all species. The cumulative harvest in Southeast Alaska stood at 5.7 millon chum, 1.2 million pink, 405,000 sockeyes, 380,000 silver and 135,000 Chinook salmon.

At Kodiak, the cumulative harvest jumped from 2.2 million salmon of all species to 3.8 million fish, including 1.6 million sockeye, 1.6 million pink, 545,000 chum, 14,000 coho and 10,000 king salmon.

Meanwhile on the Yukon River, the cumulative harvest of chum salmon was up to 385,000 fish, compared with 309,000 chum the previous week.