Sockeye vs pink salmon: the five species and their markets

Sockeye is Alaska's high-value salmon: a larger, firm, deep-colored fish that earns most of the money in the commercial harvest. Pink is the high-volume salmon: the smallest and most numerous species, the backbone of canned salmon, landed in the largest numbers but worth far less per fish.

In 2025, ADF&G's preliminary figures put the average sockeye at 5.1 pounds and $1.17 a pound at the dock, about $5.98 a fish, and the average pink at 3.2 pounds and $0.30 a pound, about $0.96 a fish. Pinks were 61% of the fish Alaska's fleet landed; sockeye earned 58% of the money.

Sockeye vs pink salmon, side by side

All figures are ADF&G's preliminary 2025 season summary unless marked.

• Fish landed: 52.6 million sockeye, 119.1 million pinks.
• Average weight: 5.1 pounds for sockeye, 3.2 for pink. ADF&G's species profiles put adult sockeye at 4 to 15 pounds and call pink the smallest Pacific salmon in North America.
• Average ex-vessel price: $1.17 a pound for sockeye, $0.30 for pink.
• Ex-vessel value: $314.8 million for sockeye, $114.3 million for pink, out of $541.4 million for all five species.
• Value per fish: about $5.98 for a sockeye, about $0.96 for a pink.
• Where they are caught: Bristol Bay landed 41.2 million of the 52.6 million sockeye. Pinks came from across the Gulf of Alaska: 44.5 million in Prince William Sound, 34.6 million in Kodiak, 20.7 million in Southeast and 16.8 million on the Alaska Peninsula.
• Life cycle: sockeye spend one to four years in fresh water, usually in a lake system, and one to three at sea. Pinks go to sea as soon as they leave the gravel and all return at two years old, so odd-year and even-year runs are separate populations.
• 2026 projection (ADF&G, April 2026): 56.0 million pinks; 44.1 million sockeye on the commercial basis this site's scoreboard uses. ADF&G's 49.7 million statewide sockeye figure also counts 5.6 million Upper Cook Inlet fish available to every user group.

A worked example: 1,000 fish of each

Take 1,000 sockeye and 1,000 pinks at the 2025 averages. The sockeye weigh 5,100 pounds; at $1.17 a pound they gross $5,967. The pinks weigh 3,200 pounds; at $0.30 a pound they gross $960. One sockeye earned about what six pinks did. (ADF&G's statewide totals divide out to the same $5.98 and $0.96 a fish; the small difference is rounding in the average weight.)

Where a sockeye is caught moves its price too. ADF&G's 2025 average was $1.03 a pound in Bristol Bay, where most of the fish are, and $2.57 in Prince William Sound, home of the early-season Copper River market.

Which is bigger depends on the year

Pinks usually outnumber sockeye, but not every year. Their fixed two-year life splits each river into an odd-year run and an even-year run that never interbreed, and in recent decades Alaska's odd years have tended to bring the bigger pink returns. In 2024, an even year, ADF&G's preliminary figures had the fleet landing 42.1 million sockeye and 40.0 million pinks, and sockeye earned 68% of that season's $304.0 million ex-vessel value. In 2025, an odd year, pinks outnumbered sockeye more than two to one and sockeye's share of the value fell to 58%.

Sockeye vs pink salmon this season

The two tables below are this site's live 2026 harvest against ADF&G's preseason forecast, by area, from the Blue Sheet: sockeye first, then pink.

The sockeye and pink pages carry the full season week by week and each area's 2025 prices.

The other three species

Chum, known in the fleet as dogs and sold as keta, are bigger than pinks and leaner than sockeye, and their roe is a large part of their value. In 2025 ADF&G's figures put a chum at about $3.84. Like pinks, chum lean heavily on hatcheries in Southeast and Prince William Sound, so much of their volume is produced rather than wild.

Coho, the silvers, run last and close out the season in most areas, a bright fish sold fresh and frozen at a premium to pinks and chum: about $8.69 a fish in 2025. Chinook, the kings, are the largest and fewest. They brought $6.40 a pound and about $68.39 a fish in 2025, but at 182,000 fish they were 2% of the season's value. Weak king runs drive some of the sharpest fishing restrictions in the state, which makes them matter to management well past their tonnage.

How to read the count and the value

A season can land tens of millions of pinks and still turn on how the sockeye came in, because each sockeye carries about six times a pink's value at the dock. Read the fish count and the value as two separate questions: pinks answer the first, sockeye the second. For where each species sits in the calendar, from the first Copper River reds in May to the fall silvers, see Alaska salmon season dates by fishery, and for why the dock price arrives months after the season, see what is ex-vessel price?.

The Run reports harvest and value as ADF&G publishes them. It does not forecast prices or runs.