SILVER LINING

MAT-SU — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has increased the bag and possession limit for coho salmon on waters in the Knik Arm Drainage.

Previously, three salmon could be harvested per day in the management area with only two being silvers. The change keeps the limit at three but allows all three to be silvers. It affects all waters open to salmon fishing in the Knik Arm Drainage except the Little Susitna River, where the two sliver limit still applies.

Fish and Game has also added a day to the weekend-only fisheries in the area. Cottonwood, Fish and Wasilla creeks are now open to fishing on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The changes took effect today and lasts until the end of the year. All other regulations still apply.

The change comes as Fish and Game expects to exceed the escapement goals for the area, said assistant management area biologist Sam Ivey. The weir on Fish Creek and foot patrols around other creeks have brought back big numbers, he said.

“On the Knik streams, there’s a strong correlation between the four or five main streams. If we see a large escapement on one, we will see a strong escapement on the others,” Ivey said.

While anglers are enjoying great fishing on the Little Susitna River, the numbers do not warrant an increase in the limit, he said. The weir on the Little Su is too far upstream to use for in-season management, so Fish and Game relies on booth counts taken at the public boat launch. The numbers indicate the fish will meet, but not exceed, the upper limit of the escapement goal, Ivey said.

“The Little Su is producing a really strong run,” he said. “It’s a pretty good deal. A lot of fish are coming back.”

Ivey said the Susitna River Drainage area is having a great year for silvers as well, but there is no plan to increase the limit on the waterway there. Three silvers are already allowed on the west side, and the east-side Parks Highway streams rarely see increases in the bag limit.

Fish and Game’s main weir in the area is on the Deshka River. Ivey said 26,000 silvers have gone through so far, and they expect to see the season end over the 30,000-fish mark, an average-to-strong run.

The run is following the preseason predictions made by Fish and Game. Silvers typically return to the rivers when they are four or five years old, Ivey said. The returns for the 2005 and 2006 seasons were excellent, he said.

“The coho return is difficult to foresee,” he said, “but we anticipated a good run based on the parent years of 2005 and 2006.”

Ivey anticipates this year’s run to last through the end of August. Around Sept. 10 is when the fish should start to slow down, as does the pressure from fisherman who shift their attention to filling their freezers with red meat, Ivey said.

It’s never too early to make predictions about next year, and Ivey said the cohos should be back in force coming off the 2006 run.

King salmon, on the other hand, are a big question mark for 2010. Kings return when they are four years old, and Ivey is worried about the flooding of 2006.

“When we did our aerial survey after the flood, we noticed a lot of scouring and rechannelization where salmon had been spawning two weeks prior,” Ivey said. “The first signs of that flood will be returning next year.”

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.