Christmas may have come early for subsistence fishermen looking toward next season on the Kuskokwim River as biologists expect a healthy king salmon run there this summer. The preliminary estimate calls for 140,000 to 190,000 kings to swim up the Kuskokwim River in 2018.
That’s more than enough to meet the drainage-wide king escapement goal of 65,000 to 120,000 fish.
Managers at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicate that if the kings show up in these numbers, they will have to provide more subsistence fishing openings.
Biologists add that it’s unlikely that the revised numbers for the forecast will deviate much from these preliminary projections.
