Enough king salmon have entered the Yukon River drainage system to meet escapement, but not enough to support harvest levels as high as last year’s.
Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists say that fishermen should expect to catch half the number of kings they did last summer. Due to a variety of issues, fishing on the river has been hard, and not very efficient so far this year. Because of this, managers are increasing the subsistence fishing opportunities to two 36-hour openings a week with 7.5-inch or smaller gillnets.
In District 1 of the Yukon River, the first of these twice weekly subsistence openings will start Thursday, July 9 at 8 p.m. and end Saturday, July 11 at 8 a.m. The other weekly subsistence drift net opportunity will take place on Mondays at 8 p.m., and close on Wednesdays at 8 a.m.
The number of chum salmon entering the Yukon River is increasing, but managers say that the overall numbers are still low, and that they want to hold off on commercial openings.