Nonresident anglers allowed kings again in Southeast

(Alaska Department of Fish and Game photo)

By Anna Laffrey

Daily Sitka Sentinel

King salmon fishing is back on for nonresident sport anglers in Southeast Alaska, effective Monday, Aug. 4, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has announced.

Chinook retention has been closed since July 7 for nonresidents fishing in Southeast.

Fish and Game said at the beginning of July that it would be putting an indefinite pause on out-of-state residents’ harvest because the sport sector was on track to exceed the regionwide sport harvest target for Chinook.

The July 7 closure was geared at providing uninterrupted harvest opportunity for Alaska resident anglers, and keeping harvest within the 2025 sport allocation of 27,700 treaty Chinook that’s set under the terms of the U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty. 

Fishermen of all gear groups in Southeast this year are bound by a record-low treaty Chinook allocation, with harvest limits down almost 40% from last year. In line with these cuts, nonresident sport anglers can harvest one Chinook per person for 2025, a strict limit compared with recent years.

When Fish and Game announced that nonresidents king fishing would be shuttered mid-season, local charter operators said they would take a hit since they advertise the prized chance for nonresidents to harvest Chinook in Alaska waters.

Guides said that with the closure in place they would continue catching coho salmon, and showing clients to bottomfish grounds. ADF&G Area Manager Troy Tydinco said today that, with the Chinook closure in place, he’s seen an increase in black cod harvest around Sitka.

The month-long closure has been effective in reducing Chinook harvest, and sufficient Chinook allocation remains to reopen retention to nonresidents across Southeast, Fish and Game said in a press release on Monday.

In an email, Tydingco said that through July 27 sport anglers in Southeast harvested about 25,800 Chinook. About 20,500 of those fish will count towards the treaty allocation, Tydingco said. Most Chinook originating from Alaska hatcheries do not count towards the treaty harvest.

Tydingco said that in the first three weeks of the nonresident closure, about 800 Chinook were harvested across Southeast. The majority of that harvest was by residents, although there are a few isolated terminal harvest areas where nonresidents have legally harvested a small number of those kings.

And in recent weeks, Southeast anglers have been harvesting a higher proportion of Alaska origin hatchery Chinook, which has tempered the department’s estimate of the number of treaty Chinook harvested to date.

With some 20,500 treaty Chinook in the bag, sport anglers can still catch about 6,500 treaty salmon for the remainder of the season, Tydingo said.

That’s “enough to allow for additional opportunity for nonresident anglers while protecting resident harvest opportunity,” Tydingco said. “Because we have been directed to manage in season, we will continue to monitor closely over the next few weeks and may take action again if necessary.”

He doesn’t anticipate needing to implement another nonresident Chinook closure, although that remains a possibility.

• This story was originally published by the Daily Sitka Sentinel.