The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced new sport fishing restrictions for Cook Inlet’s summer and winter saltwater king salmon fisheries. The order is in response to declining king salmon populations, the department advised.
Key restrictions for king salmon sport fishing include:
- Cook Inlet Salt Waters north of Bluff Point (59° 40.00′ N. lat.)
- Closure period: May 1 – Aug. 15, 2025
- Regulations: King salmon fishing, including catch-and-release, is strictly prohibited. Any king salmon incidentally caught while fishing for other species must be released immediately without removing the fish from the water.
- Lower Cook Inlet (south of Bluff Point to Cape Douglas and east of Gore Point, including Kachemak Bay)
- Bag and possession limits: One king salmon of any size per day from April 1 – Aug. 31, 2025.
- Winter fishery start: From Sept. 1-15, the bag and possession limit remains at one king salmon of any size.
- Exemptions for terminal fisheries
- The Nick Dudiak Fishing Lagoon on the Homer Spit and the Seldovia Slough and Lagoon Terminal Fisheries are excluded from the reduction in bag limits. These areas will retain the previous two-king salmon bag limit.
Recent monitoring of early-run king salmon escapement in the Kenai, Anchor, and Deshka Rivers indicates that 2025 runs are projected to be below the lower end of escapement goals. This has prompted preseason closures for in-river sport fisheries and an additional closure of Upper Cook Inlet salt waters north of Bluff Point from May 1 – July 15 under the Upper Cook Inlet Summer Salt Water King Salmon Management Plan.
Further, the Kenai River Late-Run King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan, adopted by the Alaska Board of Fisheries, mandates an annual closure to sport fishing for king salmon north of Bluff Point from June 20-Aug. 15 until the Kenai River late-run king salmon population meets recovery criteria.
The emergency restrictions apply solely to king salmon sport fishing and do not impact the sport fishing regulations for other species, such as halibut. However, they coincide with similar freshwater sport fishery restrictions throughout Cook Inlet.
“King salmon have continued to decline and were at historic low levels in 2024,” said Mike Booz, Area Management Biologist for ADF&G. “These restrictions aim to maximize escapements while taking a more precautionary approach to sport harvest opportunities in these mixed-stock fisheries.”
Anglers are asked to review the latest Southcentral Sport Fishing Regulation Summary booklet for more details on current regulations. The department said it will continue monitoring salmon populations and may adjust regulations as necessary to support the recovery of king salmon stocks in the region.
These closures follow a pattern of recent years with multiple closures. However, this announcement represents one of the more sweeping closures in recent years.
With so many closures over so many years, overfishing doesn’t appear to be the problem.
It may be that pink salmon being released in hatcheries are dining on king salmon fry in the ocean, which could be dramatically reducing the number of kings returning. Read this report from 2018 on the complicated issue of hatchery pink salmon and their life cycle:
Maybe(?) … We can get some preferential treatment – exclusions – exemptions from these onerous and invasive laws for Property Taxpayers, middle age Blue Eye White Guys w/ receding hairline, Heterosexuals, Die-Hard RMK Sleders, Conservative – Republicans, North Slope Working Hands, Dudes that have an abundance of Logic – Reason – Common Sense.
Nobody thinks about this or discusses it anymore.
In 2013, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melted down after its backup emergency water pump engines were flooded in a tsunami.
Cooling water has been stored in massive tanks on shore in Japan ever since. Some nuclear elements could be remediated. But four of them could NOT be remediated, and they DO NOT HAVE ANY information on how these four elements impact fisheries, human health, etc. Guess what? One thing that has been well known, widely discussed, and well publicized, is that Japan’s on-shore cooling water storage capacity would eventually fill up. The international community has been able to produce NO answers for how to deal with that water, other than to begin releasing it into the ocean. And we’re talking about BILLIONS of gallons of nuclear-irradiated cooling water. They started the release process last summer.
So many years have elapsed. What do you think the biologists in ADF&G are doing to monitor radiation in deep sea salmon feeding beds? Nothing. Why? Because most of them are too young to remember the event. None of them read Japanese News. And our fisheries management folks are not aware of or even asking questions about this.
Hmmmm?!? Salmon, crab, and other big-bodied, long-living protein sources in the ocean take a population dive in the last 10 years… and we don’t even remember the single largest pollution emission, which is bioaccumulative and it’s toxic exposure risks have no known low threshold and no known impact data, in the Pacific Ocean in our lifetimes? Let’s look into that, people!
Looking back on it, in 2018, the Prince William Sound King Salmon population seemed safe. It has been pretty borderline and also has struggled these past few years. Perhaps the powerful interests that kept the hatchery pinks at such a high level will be able to see past the ends of their noses now. Maybe they will need to have their arms twisted. Figuratively, of course.
Seriously, people. Why are they not looking at the bottom trawler fleet? They kill anything and everything in their path. They have a large lobbying operation that keeps them legal. Murki supports them and people have speculated that this industry is negatively impacting AK crabbing. It needs to be shut down!