SE KING LIMITS TO BE CUT

nmelktrout

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I know you guys are probably wondering what a desert rat is doing posting on here but I've worked in AK for many years and have family and a great boat in Juneau. Furthermore, I was bummed to get some info regarding the upcoming king harvest....

Better hone those halibut fishing skills because the limit on kings for residents looks like it will be cut to one this year. Only a 3 fish annual limit for non residents. Not that big of a deal for non residents because your daily limit is only one regardless, but going from 3/day to 1/day for residents sucks, especially for Cross Sound trips. The Chinook abundance index has apparently dropped like a rock and the lower 48 wants 40% of the Chinook allocation? Rumor is that there might be an even more drastic cut... I know we have been seeing less kings for the past couple of years and the opening of the Taku inlet to commercial fisheries was apparently an overharvest disaster...

Too much commercial and sport fishing? What's your take?
 
Salmon appear to be in some trouble all up and down the west coast. Here in California, our run of fall kings was nothing short of a disaster this past fall. We had about 10% of the normal run, and we just lost our entire sport and commercial season this year in California and part of Oregon.

The scientists are saying that "ocean conditions" aren't favorable for salmon right now. Many sport interests think that pumping of water from the Sacramento River system has much more to do with it, but in either case this would have nothing to do with Alaskan salmon, so what the heck is going on?
 
No problems over here F&G is saying 18th best season in the past 40 years for Alaska. Sounds about average to me, but then its an off pink year so sockeye, chums, silvers and kings should pick up the slack.
 
" . . . but going from 3/day to 1/day for residents sucks"

That's the resident daily limit from Jan-March and you could fish 2-rods per person.

Juneau area (I am a local) has traditionally been 1 fish per person per day. We have had some great years lately when they have increased it to between 2-4 per day. It is rare when you can catch more than one per person though. Have have some great days when I've caught 3 or 4 and that's some fun. The Fritz Cove terminal area is almost alway 4 per person per day when all the hatchery kings show up. It's combat fishing at it's finest, but the fishing is very good (for Juneau.)

Absolutly slayed the halibut last year. We let go several 100#+ fish as we had more than enuff for the year. Hopefully the king crabbing will be better, cuz last year sucked.
 
From today's on-line news:
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State lowers Southeast chinook quota
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - Southeast Alaska commercial fishermen will have fewer king salmon to harvest this year.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says it is lowering the salmon harvest quota to 170,000 fish.

That's a decrease of 159,400 fish from the quota last year and it's the lowest catch level since 2000.

The department says chinook salmon returns to many rivers from Oregon to Alaska have declined from high levels seen from 2003 to 2005.

The department says unfavorable ocean conditions in 2005 and 2006 likely were a significant cause of the poor survival of king salmon in the early part of their four to five year life cycle.
______________________________________________________

A 50% quota reduction is pretty big, but we've had some good years.

I just don't see them messing too much with the sport fishing daily bag limits. As long as I can keep 1/day/person, I'm happy.
 
Thanks for the update Muskeg. I think it is a good thing for the fishery as well. Doesn't affect me as a N/R and I'm not surprised to see that they are chalking it up to unfavorable ocean conditions. Word out of the Douglas F&G office is that they miscalculated the king returns and then mistakenly allowed too great of commercial harvests over the past few years -especially the Taku opening a couple of years ago. How'd you do on silvers this year? We hammered them before the commercial fishing opened up and then it got pretty damned slow. This was a great year on halibut for us as well as we caught some huge fish and good numbers of chickens. Only big kings we boated were out in Icy. Did well in August on feeders on the back side of Douglas down deep. Isn't the king crab fishery going to be shut down around town this year?
 
They made the cut. Here is the breakdown. 48% cut in the king sportfishing harvest.

Region 1-Southeast News Release
(Released: April 09, 2008)

SOUTHEAST ALASKA KING SALMON SPORT FISHING REGULATIONS FOR 2008

Juneau- The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is announcing today the 2008 sport fishing bag and possession limits for king salmon in Southeast Alaska and Yakutat which will become effective 12:01 A.M. April 9, 2008. The regulations are:

? The bag and possession limit for king salmon is 1 fish 28 inches or greater in length for all anglers.

? Nonresident harvest limit:



o From January 1 through June 30, a nonresident's harvest limit is three king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length;

o From July 1 through July 15, a nonresident's harvest limit is two king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length, and any king salmon 28 inches or greater in length harvested by the nonresident from January 1 through June 30 will apply toward the two fish harvest limit;

o From July 16 through December 31, a nonresident's harvest limit is one king salmon, 28 inches or greater in length, and any king salmon 28 inches or greater in length harvested by the nonresident from January 1 through July 15 will apply toward the one fish harvest limit;

o Nonresident anglers must record all king salmon harvested, in ink, either on the back of their sport fishing license, or on a nontransferable harvest record immediately.

? From May 1 through June 30 the maximum number of lines that may be fished from a charter vessel engaged in sport fishing charter activities is four lines;

? From August 1 through September 30, the retention of king salmon less than 48 inches in length is prohibited by resident and nonresident anglers, except that from August 15 through August 25, an angler is allowed a bag and possession limit of one king salmon 28 inches or greater in length, in the following areas (see map):

o Lynn Canal north of a line from Point Couverden to point Lizard Head to a line form Point Bridget to Point Whidby;

o Taku Inlet west of a line from Cooper Point to Greely Point;

o Stephens Passage north of a line from Gwen Point to Point Styleman.

The Southeast Alaska king salmon sport fishery is managed under the directives of the Southeast Alaska King Salmon Management Plan (5 AAC 47.055). This plan prescribes management measures implemented by the department for the king salmon sport fishery based upon the preseason abundance index determined by the Chinook Technical Committee of the Pacific Salmon Commission. The preseason abundance index for the 2008 season is 1.07 which equates to 31,350 king salmon allocated to the sport fishery. This is a 48 % reduction in the number of king salmon allocated to the sport fishery in 2007. The department must enact all prescribed management measures for abundance indices below 1.1 and above 1.0 to satisfy the mandates of the plan. These regulations are anticipated to be in effect for the remainder of the 2008 season.

For further information regarding sport fisheries in Southeast Alaska, contact the nearest ADF&G office or visit:
 
No worries. Picked this beauty up this weekend south of town.

Lars-27lbKing-2R.jpg


I'll settle for one of these each day I go out. My buddy did not connect, but my other buddy and his brother both caught fish in the same general location.
 
That's a real beauty MM! In order to protect the Sacramento kings, there will be no commercial or sport fishery this year in northern CA. Silvers were already closed.

Maybe next year, if all goes well?

Eel
 
TBinKodiak,
Didn't I hear somewhere that the King run on the Karluk river last year was one of the worst since records have been kept? Just curious if this was true? I know the saltwater fishing around Kodiak Island is like it used to be in the good old days in S.E. Especially the Halibut and Lingcod! thanks
 
Yeah, both the Karluk and Ayakulik have had poor runs the past two years. The commercial harvest hasn't increased so it may just have been poor recruitment. I think they'll know more this year if its another poor return. All the other species are doing great though. Sockeye runs over half a million fish into the Karluk which is normal, pinks into the millions. The king run there has historically been around 10,000 fish and last year was around 2,000. One small variance could have a big effect on a return that small. Anything from river levels or temps, to predation of fry by dollies in freshwater and pollock in the salt or adults by orcas. Also always a concern about bycatch from the trawl fleet, then again they harvest a lot of pollock so who knows if that balances out.
The Buskin here on the road system had a large number of 4 year salt reds last year. That system is usually dominated by 2 and 3 year salt fish. A lot of variables in every fishery so who knows for sure. So like I said they should know more this year if there really is a problem or if its just some sort of blip on the screen.
Almost all of our king fishing is for feeder kings. I was out 4 weeks ago and we put one in the boat about 25 lbs. Also out 2 weeks ago and got skunked. That's fishing.
 
This doesn't apply to the Alaskan fish, but as follow up on my comments about California losing our king season, it in now becoming more widely known that a major reason for the decline in our populations is that our hatcheries have been releasing only about 25-30% of the kings they used to.

The brilliant (read-frickin moron) biologists with the FWS and NMFS believe that 'wild' kings are genetically superior to hatchery raised kings, so they've been working to get the hatcheries to reduce their production. It's great to have totally wild, river spawned kings, but when you build dams and cut off most of their spawning habitat, you need hatcheries to replace what they could have done on their own without the dams.

Two friends who are game wardens told me about this reduction in hatchery production. They also said that California would have a lot more fish and game if we didn't have biologists messing with things all the time. I tend to agree with them.
 

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