State closes Southeast commercial king salmon troll fishery

(Alaska Department of Fish and Game photo)

The Southeast and Yakutat commercial troll fishery for king salmon closed on Friday, July 4, as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game projected that the fleet would hit the harvest limit for the season’s first opener in just four days.

The target harvest set by the state for the opening which began on July 1 was 38,000 fish. State fisheries managers forecast the catch would total 37,700 kings as of the evening of July 4, pending a final count of fish tickets.

After the closure, all trollers are required to offload any kings before setting out gear for other salmon species.

The short opening was expected under this year’s more restrictive catch numbers, intended to preserve low salmon runs.

The commercial troll harvest limit for this year was set at 92,700 so-called treaty kings — salmon governed by the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty — a steep drop from last year’s limit of 153,000. Hatchery kings from Alaska facilities are excluded from the treaty.

The department will announce subsequent openings for trollers later in the summer.

The department on April 1 announced an overall allocation of 130,800 treaty kings for all gear groups targeting the fish in waters off Southeast Alaska and Yakutat, including commercial and sport fisheries. That’s down substantially from an average quota of 200,000 kings per year 2020 through 2024.

Of the 130,800 kings, 27,700 are allocated for the sportfishing catch by residents and nonresidents. To help preserve fishing opportunities for residents, the department announced last week that king salmon fishing by nonresidents would close on Monday, July 7, through the end of the season on Sept. 30.

In April, the department said this year’s low quota for Southeast is due in large part to a poor forecast for four of the seven Pacific Northwest king stocks: the Fraser River summer run in British Columbia, the West Coast Vancouver Island run, Columbia River summer kings and Washington coast kings.

The treaty salmon migrate from their Pacific Northwest spawning rivers through Southeast Alaska waters.

• This story originally appeared in the Wranell Sentinel.