Bristol Bay's salmon run hit yet another milestone this season.

If 2 billion fish on the books and a record catch in Ugashik weren't enough, the Bay solidified its larger-than-average stance with a catch that — so far — is the fourth largest on record, surpassing the 2015 harvest.

Through July 25, 37.2 million salmon of all species and 36.5 million sockeye were landed by commercial fisherman in Bristol Bay. That's actually larger than the catch in 2015, although the 2015 total run of 58 million sockeye is still much larger than 2016's 47 million salmon total run so far.

The first, second, and third largest harvests came in 1995, 1993 and 1983.

The large harvests came in part as strong days continued for several days beyond the peak. On July 15, fishermen landed 2.4 million salmon, the most of any single day in 2015. Then, catches of 1 million or more fish continued for five more days. When the last daily run summary went out on July 22, the numbers for July 21 showed a harvest that day of 727,100 - still relatively strong for that late in the season.

Those sockeye catches prompted Alaska Department of Fish and Game managers to delay the change-over to management focused on pinks and silvers.

Westside Manager Tim Sands said on July 20 that the fishery remained predominantly a sockeye fishery, and although fishermen could also harvest and deliver pinks and silvers, he was waiting to make the management switch until those represented a larger portion of the catch.

Naknek-Kvichak was scheduled to switch to its fall fishing schedule on Aug. 1, about two weeks later than usual. And on July 25, Egegik and Ugashik District Manager Paul Salomone wrote in an email that he hadn't seen any reported silver catches yet.

Ugashik has also continued to rack up its catch, with 6.3 million fish harvested through July 21, the most of any season on record, with a total run of 7.8 million - well beyond the pre-season forecast. Likewise, Egegik exceeded its forecast, with a harvest of 8 million through July 21, and a total run of 9.7

Naknek-Kvichak remained below the forecast at 12.7 fish harvested and a total run of 18.6 million, and Nushagak's 7.8 million fish harvest and 10.2 million fish total run were right about on the pre-season expectation.

Togiak, typically a later run, was behind through July 21, but still had room to catch up, with 439,880 fish harvested through July 21 and a total run of about half-a-million fish.

Molly Dischner can be reached at mdischner@reportalaska.com.