Hopeful news for Yukon River salmon fisheries while kings remain under goals

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Subsistence fishing for chum salmon on the Yukon River has opened because of positive projections for the run reaching escapement goals, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said.

King salmon remains under escapement goal ranges, though, and now that the run is past its peak, it is unlikely the king salmon fishery in the Yukon will open this season.

“It just shows that we’re not out of the clear yet,” Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association Executive Director Serena Fitka said. “We’re still sticking around those trends. I mean, there’s chinook salmon will hopefully, hopefully, there’ll be a late run, a bigger run. So I guess we’ll see,”

As of Saturday, 30,210 chinook salmon have passed the Pilot Station Sonar project. Last year, by the same date, 33,560 had crossed and 161,663 had crossed by the same date in 2019, said ADF&G. Meanwhile, 355,788 chum salmon have crossed the same project since Saturday, 217,598 had crossed by the same day last year, and 622,670 had crossed by this point in 2019. While people fish for chum salmon near the Yukon River’s entrance, Fitka said she wishes there were similar opportunities further upstream.

“After you pass Tanana River, many of those communities don’t have the opportunity to fish chum salmon,” she said. “It’s kind of a very hard decision for the managers to make when it comes to that spread.”

When asked about the possibility of hatcheries being used to bolster king salmon numbers, Fitka said it’s possible and has been discussed by organizations in the area. In response to the numbers, Fitka talked about the possibility of hatchery restoration, or new hatcheries, to bolster populations.

“A lot of people need to understand there’s different types of hatcheries in restoration,” Fitka said. “There’s large scale, small scale, so really providing that education around that is much needed, and I believe right now, we’re at that point. However, from past meetings, our board has never agreed to a large-scale hatchery on the Yukon River.”

The Yukon River is so long, Fitka said, it would be hard to decide where the best location would be for a hatchery to be established.

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