A declining Chilkat king salmon run has triggered the most restrictive fishing regulations in years and prompted cancellation of the annual Haines king salmon derby.
Citing a forecast that numbers of kings escaping to spawn would fall short of the minimum needed to sustain the fishery, state Department of Fish and Game biologists this week said restrictions will include:
· Closing Chilkat Inlet to sportfishing through June;
· Pushing subsistence fishermen south to Kochu Island through June; and,
· Moving commercial gillnet boats about 1.5 miles south of Seduction Point through July 4.
Assuming a normal harvest, 1,713 mature kings would return to spawn in the Chilkat this year, biologists say. That’s shy of the state’s escapement goal of 1,850 kings. Last year, only 1,534 kings made it to their spawning grounds. Escapements also fell short of goals in 2012 and 2013, though by smaller margins.
“We’ve been using a more pessimistic forecast the past couple years. We’ve been scaling back our estimate, but we haven’t been pessimistic enough,” said Rich Chapell, sport fish biologist for Fish and Game in Haines.
“We’re going to err on the side of caution this year because this run has been underperforming expectations for three years now,” Chapell said.
Moving subsistence fishing south won’t save many fish but it will close an area at Letnikof where kings mill about and should dissuade subsistence fishermen from targeting kings during early-season openings when sockeye aren’t so plentiful, said Randy Bachman, commercial fisheries biologist for Fish and Game.
Bachman said that in 2014, there were 12 kings reported caught by subsistence fishermen through June in the area to be closed, and typically there are about 20. “The data doesn’t suggest we catch that many, but with the forecast as low as it is, we’re trying to conserve every fish.”
Toni DeWitt of the Haines Sportsman’s Association, which sponsors the annual salmon derby, said the Chilkat Inlet closure didn’t leave her group much of a choice but to cancel the event, as 95 percent of derby fish are caught in Chilkat Inlet.
“I’m kind of bummed about it. It’s not going to be the same spring around here for a bunch of us,” DeWitt said. Low returns also canceled the derby in 2008 and in multiple years during the 1990s, she said.
In 2014, sport fishermen caught 228 kings, 197 which were wild, mature fish heading up the Chilkat to spawn. Also in 2014, commercial fishermen caught 116 kings in Chilkat Inlet and subsistence fishermen caught 76 kings in the inlet and 16 in the Chilkat River.
In 2013, gillnet boats took 168 kings and subsistence fishermen took 72 in Chilkat Inlet and 27 in Chilkat River.
Bachman said the commercial harvest of Chilkat kings the past two years is “kind of an anomaly,” as the 10-year average for the incidental harvest of the fish by gillnet boats is 46 fish. The increase may be due to more of the run arriving later in the year, he said.
Sport fish biologist Chapell said the decline of the Chilkat king run is a puzzle, as the numbers of young kings surviving to rear in the ocean hasn’t dropped. “The numbers of young fish leaving the river has been steady, but the rate they’re returning is going down. The fish are not surviving in the ocean the way they used to historically,” he said.
Also, relatively more young fish are surviving to return, Chapell said. Kings that spend three or four years in the ocean have historically comprised the biggest part of a year’s return. “In some brood years, two-ocean fish have been the biggest part of the run. That’s a big surprise.”
Low king returns also are occurring in the Taku and Unuk rivers in Southeast Alaska, while kings from rivers in Washington and British Columbia are returning in robust numbers, Chapell said. An abundance of kings from those southern runs led Fish and Game to increase bag limits in Southeast to three kings per day last year.
Haines biologists said they could consider a separate bag limit for sport-caught Chilkat fish, but that’s unlikely to make much of a dent in harvest. According to information from interviews with anglers, a one-fish-per day bag limit would have saved only 10 kings here last year, they said.