Fishing for red salmon is prohibited in the Chilkoot River beginning Thursday just after midnight.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced late Tuesday that anglers would no longer be able to retain sockeye in the river or Chilkoot Lake through Oct. 16.
Area management biologist Alex Tugaw said salmon returns to the area have been extremely low. As of July 15, just 600 sockeye salmon have been counted passing through the Chilkoot River weir.
The weir has been pulled twice due to high water on the river.
“When the water gets high, it’s just unsafe to work on. The water pressure starts scouring out, growls from underneath the weir, and makes holes in it,” he said.
Tugaw said that does affect the count but not by much.
“We have data from 1976 onwards to use, to actually interpolate what’s been going on in the time that has been pulled,” he said. “So we still get a very accurate representation of what’s going on in the river.”
On average over the past decade, 20,000 sockeye have passed through the weir by this date.
“This is kind of a strange year. It’s normally a very reliable run,” he said.
“Something has happened to cause really poor smolt survival, you know, juvenile salmon survival, either in the lake or poor ocean survival for the adults and it’s kind of a strange time for this to be happening to this system because every other system pretty much region wide is doing excellent when it comes to sockeye. Chilkat River and Chilkat Lake are well above their 10 year average.”
The latest emergency order only covers sport fishing for sockeye. Tugaw said that although the retention of sockeye is prohibited in Chilkoot river and lake catch and release is still ok, and anglers are still able to take 6 chum and pink salmon, as well as up to 4 Dolly Varden.
Although there has been no official notification yet, the state’s division of commercial fisheries will issue one soon to help minimize Chilkoot River sockeye interception by commercial fishermen. Area management biologist Nicole Zeiser said that might include shifting the fleet over to the western side of the Upper Lynn Canal in order to give the fleet an opportunity to harvest Chilkat River sockeye salmon.
“There seems to be a high abundance of Chilkat River sockeye salmon, and escapement counts are well above average at this time,” she said.
Zeiser also said that the Boat Harbor terminal harvest area will not be restricted, and fishermen will be able to keep fishing in that area to allow harvest opportunities on hatchery chum salmon.
If sockeye salmon numbers at the Chilkoot River weir improve and are projected to meet the escapement goal, this restriction may be relaxed.