Biologists are considering unprecedented fishing restrictions this summer to protect a feeble return of king salmon to Chilkat River estuaries.

Options include closing sportfishing in Lynn Canal, prohibiting commercial fishing at night, and restricting days of the week that in-river subsistence fishermen can set out nets.

The Department of Fish and Game is expected to issue a season management plan in the coming weeks, following a commissioner-level discussion of alternatives.

Only 635 large kings are projected to return to the Chilkat’s spawning grounds. That’s about one third of the minimum number Fish and Game says it needs to sustain the run, 1,850, and far off last year’s return of 1,386.

“It’s a disaster,” said Rich Chapell, area management biologist for Fish and Game in Haines. “Even with zero harvest in the fisheries, we might not make our escapement goal… It’s a big problem to fix it.”

Biologists acknowledge the new restrictions will be unpopular, but say they’re necessary.

Closing the canal to sportfishing would mean no king salmon fishing, even in Chilkoot Inlet. It’s an idea that’s supported by the Haines Sportsman’s Association, which for decades held a king salmon derby, but is expected to cancel its event for the third consecutive year.

The sportsmen recently sent a letter to Fish and Game seeking closure of sport fishing north of Point Couverden, a spot at a latitude south of downtown Juneau. The idea has some support of Juneau-area biologists concerned about dwindling escapement of Taku River kings, Chapell said.

Officials with Tlingit-Haida Central Council, which sponsors a spring king salmon derby in Juneau, also are reportedly considering cancelling their derby this year. That’s good news to Haines anglers, who say too many Chilkat fish have been intercepted entering Lynn Canal from Icy Straits.

“The Taku king salmon conservation will add extra support to our conservation efforts,” said sportfish biologist Chapell. “Any reductions in spring fisheries down there are going to benefit our Chilkat king returns.”

Commercial gillnetters may see more time and area restrictions, including night closures in the sockeye fishery in upper Lynn Canal. Commercial fisheries biologist Mark Sogge said a department study in the 1990s showed such closures could reduce harvest of immature kings as much as 90 percent.

Most recent concern has been on mature kings, but “we’re trying to think ahead,” Sogge said. “We should have been doing this in past years,” he said. The closures would likely be from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.

Other changes under consideration include limiting commercial fishing outside Boat Harbor to four days per week instead of seven, and reducing the area of fishing there to one mile offshore instead of two. In addition, an area outside the “postage stamp” fishing area that allowed gillnetters in the full width of the canal would be limited to two days per week.

Those closures would create a “corridor” for passage of Chilkat kings, Sogge said. “It would still allow for chum harvest. I don’t think it would reduce harvest rates.”

At Klukwan, subsistence fishermen may be limited to fishing four days per week instead of seven. “That one’s hard to do because people are used to going whenever they want to,” Sogge said. “We really can’t allow that with the forecast as bad as it is.”

Villager Dan Hotch said at last week’s meeting of the Upper Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory Committee that reducing to four days would be a tough sell, but if villagers could be convinced, would benefit the king return.

Villager Marvin Willard this week said he could abide by a three-day closure. “I’m in total favor and everybody in the village should be, too, because this is our way of life. You can’t have everything. To have some things, you have to give something else up.”

Subsistence fishing restrictions in Chilkat Inlet will likely return to area regulations put in place in 2015 but relaxed last year.

The king return has fallen below minimum escapement goals in four of the past five years, but by smaller margins than this year’s projected return. Rivers throughout Southeast are also seeing drops in king salmon returns, all largely attributed to poor survival when fish move out to the ocean.

“The numbers of juvenile kings leaving the (Chilkat) river since 1999 has been pretty steady. What’s been highly variable and declining is marine survival,” Chapell said.

In another effort to conserve kings, members of the local advisory committee last week endorsed a proposal that would limit the web size of subsistence nets used in Chilkat Inlet and River to 5.25 inches.

The proposal, which would go to the Board of Fisheries for consideration a year from now, is an attempt to curtail incidental catches of mature king salmon by subsistence fishermen, who use nets in the Chilkat when going after sockeye.

Committee member Derek Poinsette said he worried the restriction could be burden on “genuine” subsistence fishermen who have different sized nets patched together. Audience member Steve Fossman said such a section of net could be purchased for $20. “I don’t buy the financial hardship burden for $20.”

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