A good Mat-Su silver salmon season winds down

On Monday, I was at a meeting listening to a Canadian fisheries scientist discuss a way that Upper Cook Inlet salmon might be tracked as they travel through Upper Cook Inlet toward their spawning streams. This is an important subject as it could shed light on better ways to commercially harvest sockeye salmon bound for the Kenai and Kasilof rivers while minimizing impacts to Northern Cook Inlet-bound stocks.

At the end of the meeting, John Wood, an aide for state Sen. Mike Dunleavy, asked how summer salmon charter season had been going.

For the record, 2013 has provided the best weir measured in-river silver salmon return to the Deshka River in the past four years, and the best in-river weir measured silver salmon return to the Little Susitna River in the past five years. In addition (as measured by weir through Aug. 27), 2013 has provided the best silver salmon return to Fish Creek near Knik-Goose Bay Road in the past five years as well. The Mat-Su silver salmon season is not over and will continue to pile additional numbers of silvers to these counts, and anglers will continue to have opportunities to harvest some of the surplus fish.

Sport catches of silver salmon on the Deshka and Little Susitna rivers were low over the past weekend in comparison to the number of fish passing each weir because of higher water flows that made for difficult angling situations for many sport fishermen. Fortunately, water levels have resided and cleared and better silver/coho salmon catches have been recorded early this week. Jeff Boatright reported better silver salmon catches as early as Monday at Susitna Landing up the Parks Highway north of Willow.

Mike Hudson of 3 Rivers Fly and Tackle mentioned Clear Creek off the Talkeetna River as the hottest silver salmon fishing spot on Wednesday, and also mentioned Jim Creek as continuing to provide good catches of silver salmon this week. On my most recent two fishing charters to Little Susitna River on Tuesday, each of my five guests managed to catch a two-fish coho salmon limit during their trips; however, all of the fish were starting to develop at least a bit of a darker blush color to them, and some of the fish were already getting quite red. I found fish in a couple places where I often find them as the season is winding down, and because of still high water conditions I did not fish some of the places that were producing better for me earlier in the season.

It is now the part of the season where anglers may want to be more selective in which silver salmon they harvest in order to get the best table quality from their catch. If one wants to harvest limits of salmon, fish with at least a hint of blush may need to be kept. When keeping blushed or reddish-tinged salmon, males are often of better quality than females — especially if one is comparing fish of equal blush coloring. Even when comparing males of a bit more reddish hue, they can often be better table fare than female salmon that look more silver in color but have a somewhat dark hue to their silver coloring. Bright chrome salmon of either sex are usually excellent table fare. As a general rule, the darker colored or redder a salmon’s skin is, the less red its flesh is likely to be.

Rising and falling water levels and muddy water conditions are the other issue silver salmon anglers often have to deal with as the season progresses later into August and early September. Some streams (such as Jim Creek in the Butte area) often have sections of water that remain clear under most water conditions, other streams get out of shape and muddy much sooner. Fishing bait is often a preferred tactic for catching salmon under muddier water conditions; however, anglers should double check fishing regulations to be sure the waters they intend to fish for coho salmon still allow bait fishing after the last day of August. On Sept. 1, I believe all fishing in the Susitna River and its tributary streams switches to artificial lures only by regulation. On Little Susitna River, bait fishing is allowed through the end of September.

Cause of better Mat-Su

silver fishing in 2013

Undoubtedly, there was simply a better silver salmon return during the 2013 season than for the past couple years, as measured by the Upper Cook Inlet commercial harvests, which as of Aug. 27 topped 249,000 fish. The other significant factor was management by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game that allowed more coho salmon to pass through the Upper Cook Inlet Central District Drift Gillnet Fishery. Previously, the department failed to attain the Little Susitna River coho salmon for four consecutive years from 2009 to 2012.

Credit should be given to the combined efforts of Valley legislators, and especially Rep. Mark Neuman, Sen. Mike Dunleavy and aide John Wood for their work in requesting more conservative management action from the department. This coming winter during the February Upper Cook Inlet Board of Fisheries Meeting, it will fall on Mat-Su anglers to make known their preferences in how coho salmon should be managed if they want runs of these favored sport fish to continue to return to Mat-Su streams in numbers similar to 2013 on a regular basis.

Andy Couch owns and operates Fishtale River Guides (fish4salmon.com) and is a member of the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission.