Alaska News

With strict limits on fishing, healthy returns of Kuskokwim king salmon

BETHEL -- Tough restrictions that shut down fishing at the start of this year's king salmon run on the Kuskokwim River may have made a difference.

A state research biologist told a Kuskokwim River advisory group Wednesday that goals for salmon escapement -- fish that swim past nets, hooks and predators to spawn -- have been met on several of the big river's key tributaries.

"The chinook salmon escapement at this point is looking quite healthy," said Zach Liller, research biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game. He told the Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group that the desired number of king or chinook salmon have passed through counting stations at the Kwethluk and George rivers, and that the number was close on the Kogrukluk River, with more fish still passing through.

Surveys from the air confirm significant numbers of king salmon in tributaries, Liller said. Data from radio-tagged kings also is proving useful in showing movement of the fish from week to week, he said.

Sacrifices by village and Bethel residents along the river who were barred from targeting kings for smokehouses and drying racks appear to have paid off, said Bev Hoffman, co-chair of the Kuskokwim advisory group.

King salmon have moved past Bethel into the middle and upper reaches of the Kuskokwim. The king run started early and there was no real peak, Liller said.

"It just kept kind of chugging along," he said.

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By the season's end, between 590 and 600 king salmon will have been caught at the state-run test fishery near Bethel, which should translate to an estimated 130,000 to 140,000 fish moving past Bethel in the lower river, he said.

The preseason forecast for Kuskokwim kings was 96,000 to 163,000 fish. The goal for escapement or spawning is 65,000 to 120,000.

This summer, federal and state managers opened up subsistence fishing with gillnets for limited periods. Last week, the state opened up most of the Kuskokwim River for fishing with gillnets around the clock. Angling subsistence fishermen in most of the river still must release kings caught with hooks and lines, and sport fishermen can't target kings or chum salmon, which have had a weak return year.

Lisa Demer

Lisa Demer was a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Dispatch News. Among her many assignments, she spent three years based in Bethel as the newspaper's western Alaska correspondent. She left the ADN in 2018.

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