Anglers and guides who fish the Kenai River's long-beleaguered king salmon run got a rare taste of good news Friday when Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists opened the storied waterway to catch and release downstream from the outlet of Skilak Lake.
An early-season surge of kings left Area Management Biologist Robert Begich confident enough kings would make it to their spawning grounds, even with anglers working the river that 31 years ago produced the largest king salmon ever caught by a sport fisherman.
Through Thursday, the Fish and Game sonar at river mile 14 had counted 2,549 kings.
That's a startling number compared to recent years — 114 percent above the run through June 2 last year and a whopping 602 percent above 2014.
State biologists believe that 16 percent of the run had passed the sonar by Friday— a pace that, if maintained, could result in nearly 16,000 spawners.
"However," Begich warned in a press release, "run-timing models … are indicating a run that is likely returning earlier than observed historically and is projected to be larger than the forecast and within the optimal escapement goal" — or 5,300 to 9,000 kings.
Not all of the lower river is open to king fishing, though. A total fishing closure is in effect between the outlet of Skilak Lake and the mouth of the Lower Killey River until June 11 to protect spawning rainbow trout, assistant area management biologist Jason Pawluk told the Peninsula Clarion.
The Kenai isn't the only Southcentral river seeing a strong king return so far this year.
The Anchor River near Homer has seen 1,764 kings pass its weir two miles upstream from the river mouth. That's just slightly behind last year's pace when 10,048 kings passed the weir by the end of the season, slightly more than what biologists consider ideal.
Mat-Su's big king salmon waterway, the Deshka River, has seen 3,530 pass its weir, three times the number that had done so last year by June 2. Eventually, last year saw a strong return of more than 24,000 kings on the Deshka.
The Little Su is running slightly ahead of last year's pace too.
An earlier version of this story misstated the record for the largest king salmon ever caught. The king caught on the Kenai in 1985 was the largest ever caught by a sport fisherman on record. Larger kings have been caught commercially.