You can get those gillnets ready, because the first Kuskokwim fishing opening of the season has been announced.
This coming Saturday, May 27, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is allowing a gillnet opening for subsistence fishermen in the Kuskowkim River main stem within the Yukon Delta Refuge boundaries from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Gillnets must be four-inch or less mesh set-nets and may not exceed 60 feet in length or 45 meshes in depth. Also, the gillnets must operate within 100 feet of the ordinary high water mark.
On May 20, the state closed gillnet fishing on the Kuskokwim main stem from the river’s mouth to approximately one-half mile upstream of the mouth of the Tuluksak River. Tomorrow, Thursday, May 25, the state will move that restriction upstream and close the Kuskokwim main stem from the mouth of the Tuluksak River to the Yukon Delta Refuge boundary near Aniak.
The restriction will continue moving upstream in five-day increments.
Subsistence fishing remains open for hook and line, dip nets, beach seines, and fish wheels equipped with live boxes or chutes. All king salmon caught with this gear must be returned to the water alive to allow them to reach their spawning grounds.
