2026 Fishing Season Openers

The management strategy aimed at protecting vulnerable chum and chinook stocks on the river and its tributaries is nearly identical to the previous two years. The key difference this time around is that federal managers do not plan to restrict the harvest of coho.

The Aleutians East Borough was among four plaintiffs who argued the Alaska Board of Fisheries violated the state’s ethics laws.

The motion stems from a lawsuit filed by the groups in November after the Alaska Board of Game reauthorized a Mulchatna predator control program that had previously been overturned by state court rulings.

The funds come after the U.S. Secretary of Commerce declared a disaster for the 2021 subsistence fishery and set aside roughly $570,000. Eligible households are those whose ability to access subsistence salmon from the Kuskokwim River drainage was impacted as a direct or indirect result of the fishery disaster.

In an effort to protect chum bound for Western Alaska rivers, the board has approved some of the most severe restrictions in decades on fishing in the state-managed area lying along the western Alaska Peninsula and Eastern Aleutians.

Federal fisheries regulators said a cap would balance protections for Western Alaska salmon with the health of pollock fisheries.