An emergency order requiring all king salmon caught by sportfishers in Southeast Alaska salt waters to be released unharmed between Monday and Oct. 1 was issued by the state Department of Fish and Game on Thursday, due to the seasonal allocation being exceeded.
Two local fishing tour operators said Saturday they don’t expect it to affect their businesses since not many kings are being caught right now anyway.
The department’s decision is an unusual adjustment to the allocations for sport and commercial fishing determined before the season, but necessary due to catch limits established under the Pacific Salmon Treaty, Patrick Fowler, the department’s Southeast management coordinator for sport fisheries, said Friday.
“This is unique in that we are basically approaching the end of the season here and there’s risk that Alaska could exceed its all-gear catch limit, and that’s where the commissioner stepped in and decided to go to non-retention in the sport fishery,” he said.
A review and possible action for the commercial fishing allocation is expected at the beginning of September, Fowler said.
A statement issued by the department notes “the Southeast Alaska sport fishery has exceeded the 2024 sport allocation of king salmon as determined by Allocation of king salmon in the Southeastern Alaska-Yakutat Area.” The emergency order states king salmon caught by sportsfishers “may not be retained or possessed; any king salmon caught must be released immediately and returned to the water unharmed.”
“While the management plan is intended to avoid inseason changes to sport fishing regulations, the projected end of season harvest for the sport fishery is expected to exceed the combined sport and troll allocation,” the order states. “The magnitude of this overage in allocation may not be able to be absorbed by the remaining harvest allocation in the other Alaskan fisheries. This action is necessary to keep Alaskan fisheries from exceeding the 2024 Alaska all-gear catch limit as determined by the Pacific Salmon Treaty.”
Chris Condor, owner of Rum Runner’s Sport Fishing Charters, said the order is unlikely to affect his businesses since king salmon fishing is “pretty much done now.”
“We’re only seeing feeder kings right now, so smaller kings,” he said. “And frankly if we catch a half a dozen between now and the end of September it’s not going to affect our catch that much. We’re going to be mostly targeting cohos at this time.”
King salmon have been “in tight supply all season” and since the catch limit that ends Monday is one fish more than 28 inches it’s unlikely to affect business during the next five weeks, said Mike Bonfils, owner of Big Jim’s Charters. But he said the state should provide refunds to people who’ve purchased permits to catch king salmon they can no longer keep, especially given the limits already imposed.
“A lot of people are upset who purchased king stamps,” he said.
Other bans on salmon fishing have been issued in the region, and statewide, this year and in past years.
Many Juneau-area waters were already closed to king salmon fishing by an order in effect between June 24 and Aug. 31, due to a low projected spawning population in the wake of a 2020 landslide that killed most of the chinook that would be expected to return this year.
Other closures include an order in effect between March and the end of September for Interior areas including the Kuskokwim Drainage Area, Yukon River Drainage Area and Tanana Drainage Area. Salmon populations in those areas have been dwindling in recent years.
There have also been legal challenges to salmon fishing activity, including a lawsuit by a Washington-based group to ban commercial fishing of the species in Southeast Alaska. The group is also seeking federal government protection of Alaska’s king salmon under the Endangered Species Act.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
