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All the same, "I was looking forward to trying it again this spring," Taug said Tuesday afternoon.

But it looks like the special provisions for two rods, bigger bag limits, as well as commercial fisheries on Taku kings, may not materialize in 2006.

State biologists said Tuesday that they won't know until mid-May if they will be able to grant Juneau fishermen the extra fishing opportunities they had last year.

Right now, it looks as though too few kings are headed back to the Taku River this spring, said David Bedford, deputy commissioner for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

In contrast, the large Taku king run of 2005 triggered a liberalization of sport-fishing rules as well as precedent-setting king salmon fisheries for commercial gillnetters and trollers in Taku Inlet.

As a result, the Alaska Board of Fisheries voted in January to establish greater fishing opportunities for Juneau anglers and commercial fishermen in years of highly abundant Taku king salmon.

An emergency order allowed two rods per fisherman and bigger bag limits in effect for Taku kings last spring, but it applied only to the 2005 season.

If state biologists later determine enough fish are returning to the river this spring, they will liberalize Juneau's sport-fishing rules for Taku River king salmon once again by emergency order, Bedford said.

A "modest" harvest by trollers and gillnetters is also possible, depending on the actual run size, Bedford said

The Taku king forecast could change during the season, when the U.S.-Canadian threshold for allowing a fishery becomes lower, and when state biologists will have more exact estimate of the run size, explained Brian Glynn, a sport-fish biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Thanks to last year's big run of Taku king salmon, Juneau commercial fishermen were just about as pleased as local anglers. They were granted their first directed fisheries on Taku kings in about 30 years.

"Last year was just a win, win, win," said Charlie Polk, a Juneau gillnetter. The 2005 Taku king harvest brought in nearly $1 million in profits for local gillnetters.

Polk said gillnetters have been braced for no opening in 2005, or else a very small one.

"They (state biologists) told us they didn't expect much of a crop back (this) year," Polk said Tuesday.

The gillnetters had to discontinue fishing for Taku River kings in Taku Inlet 30 years ago because the run sizes were poor.

At the time, gillnetters were willing to give up the king fishery in order to rebuild the stocks, Polk said.

The same sentiment holds now. "It would be nice to have some fishing time on those kings, but I don't want to jeopardize the run in anyway," Polk said.

• Elizabeth Bluemink can be reached at elizabeth.bluemink@juneauempire.com.