Personal use dip net fisheries

From now until the end of July residents of South Central Alaska will experience some of the best opportunities to harvest salmon for personal use from 5 popular personal use dip net fisheries. The 3 personal use fisheries that provide the most opportunity and receive larger numbers of migrating sockeye salmon are the Copper River at Chitina, and the Kasilof and Kenai Rivers on the Kenai Peninsula. Reaching one of these 3 locations usually involves a road trip with 3 - 4 hours of drive time from the Mat-Su Valley core area.

The Fish Creek fishery is located off Knik Bay Road about a 20 minute drive from Wasilla, and the Lower Susitna River fishery is located a mile or two downstream of the Yentna River / Susitna River confluence — which is about a 45 minute boat ride downstream from Deshka Landing in Willow.

Personal use fisheries are for Alaska residents only, and each participating household needs to obtain a personal use permit before participating. Permits may be obtained at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) offices in Palmer, Anchorage, Glennallen, Delta Junction, Fairbanks and Soldotna — or they can be obtained online. When I talked with ADF&G biologist Samantha Oslund this week she said the Palmer office had been extremely busy issuing personal use salmon dip net permits both for Upper Cook Inlet fisheries and for the Chitina fishery. Permit Stipulations are listed on the permit and should be read and followed closely. One stipulation calls for online reporting by August 15 for Upper Cook Inlet permits — individual households should report on time whether they fish or not. I know an individual who did not report on time for his household last year — and consequently — lost the opportunity to get a permit this year. Note: whether the permit is obtained at an ADF&G office or online — effort and harvest reporting is now required to be done online.

To avoid an unnecessary trip to an ADF&G office, and to avoid waiting inline once we get there, my wife and I like to get our permit online at the ADF&G website. It can be printed with a home computer printer. Online permits may be obtained here: https://store.adfg.alaska.gov/

The harvest limits are 25 salmon for each head of household and an additional 10 salmon for each additional household member. King salmon may not be kept, and must be released if caught from the four Upper Cook Inlet fisheries mentioned above at this time. Chitina personal use permit holders are allowed to harvest one king salmon per permit from the Chitina fishery at this time.

Below is what I would expect from these fisheries as July progresses:

Chitina (Copper River) — this fishery provides the longest season, opening on June 15 this year with a season scheduled to run through September 30. Fishing periods are scheduled by emergency order and two hotline numbers are: 907-822-5224 in Glennallen or 907-267-2511 in Anchorage. Expectations: with over 750,000 salmon already recorded passing the Miles Lake sonar counter through July 10, and since the management objective through the sonar project end date (July 29) only calls for 584, 014 salmon, it appears this fishery will likely provide continuous or near continuous personal use dip netting through the remainder of the season on September 30. Large numbers of salmon have been passing the sonar recently and excellent catches should continue for the next couple weeks based on those large sonar counts, however, high water conditions can adversely affect harvest rates. It is, therefore, always a good idea to call a hotline number, and possibly look at Chitina weather forecasts before making the road trip to Chitina.

Kasilof River - this fishery provides the second longest season of harvest opportunity. It opened on June 25 and runs through August 7. This fishery is open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Since over 220,000 salmon have already passed the Kasilof Sonar through July 10, and since the Biological Escapement Goal (BEG) of 140,000 - 320,000 sockeye has already been achieved, expect this fishery to continue through season end. The area open to personal use dip netting was expanded by emergency order up to the Sterling Highway Bridge. With earlier upriver salmon passage Kasilof River should likely provide the best personal use salmon harvests of any Upper Cook Inlet location through the coming July 15 /16 weekend.

Kenai River - Season runs July 10 - 31. Kenai supports the largest sockeye run in Upper Cook Inlet, and Kenai River sockeye are larger in size, and therefore, more desirable for many personal use harvesters. The Kenai River personal use salmon fishery is currently open from 6 a.m. - 11 p.m., 7 days per week. Through July 10 — 43, 253 late-run Kenai sockeye had passed the Kenai River sonar. With later run-timing, sockeye migration into Kenai River often jumps substantially around July 19. For that reason, expect the best Kenai River personal use salmon harvests to occur during the last 10 -12 days of July.

Mat-Su Personal Use Salmon Fisheries

Fish Creek - 1,089 sockeye had passed Fish Creek weir through July 10. According to the ADF&G website: this fishery only opens by emergency order based on an ADF&G run projection in excess of 35,000 sockeye. Although the fishery may open as early as July 15 — I expect the fishery is more likely to open sometime next week. Look for an ADF&G emergency order shortly after this column is printed. Many Mat-Su residents prefer this fishery because of the number of salmon available for harvest with drive - up access within close proximity to the Palmer, Wasilla, and Big Lake communities. Best harvests often occur soon after the fishery opens at 6 a.m. daily or within a couple hours before and after high tides. When open the fishery is scheduled 7 -days per week from 6 a.m. - 11 p.m. daily through July 31.

Lower Susitna River - Open only on Wednesdays and Saturdays from July 10 -31 from 6 a.m. - 11 p.m. With only 6 days of scheduled harvest opportunity in 2023 this personal use fishery usually provides even less days of harvest opportunity than the Fish Creek location. Although the fishery opened on Wednesday July 12, during the first three years of this fishery, few salmon have been harvested during the first two days of the season. Expect the better personal use harvests to occur during the last 4 days of the season. Lower Susitna can have good abundances of pink, coho, and chum salmon in addition to sockeye salmon. Personal use dip netters access this fishery by boat or airplane. When the Susitna River water level is too high, there can be very few suitable gravel bars to land an airplane. In addition, morning fog can create limited visibility on the lower Susitna River for both pilots and boater captains.

Good luck and Fish On!

Andy Couch has participated in 3 of the personal use fisheries mentioned in this article, and expects each of the listed personal use fisheries to provide better salmon harvest opportunities, before significant numbers of harvestable salmon arrive at Mat-Su Valley sport fisheries.