Watchful eye on salmon counts

Here are some items you might not have heard about yet. In Tuesday’s newspaper, an article about the opening of the new Cottonwood Creek foot bridge in the Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge ran. Mention was made of some upcoming road and parking lot improvements. Work on those improvements has begun.

According to the news release I received, the Cottonwood Creek access road off Hayfield Road west of Wasilla will be subject to intermittent daytime closures between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays. The work began on Wednesday. These road closures are expected to affect entry to parking at the facility for the next three weeks; however, access is supposed to remain open on Saturdays, Sundays and all evenings.

The news release continues: “Renovations are needed to maintain and upgrade the access road and parking lot. The parking lot will be expanded to accommodate more vehicles, and a camper host site will be added. The work is funded by a legislative Capital Improvement Project and a Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration grant and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough with assistance from Alaskans for Palmer Hay Flats.

“The Cottonwood Creek access is one of three main entrances to the nearly 30,000-acre Palmer Hay Flats refuge. Waterfowl hunters have long used the access site to pursue ducks, geese and cranes which nest and stopover by the thousands in the refuge’s freshwater and coastal wetlands. Cottonwood Creek’s summer-long weekend salmon fisheries draw anglers seeking sockeye and coho salmon. The fishery, which in the refuge opened on June 15, is open to sport fishing only on Saturdays and Sundays between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.”

Lots of Valley folks travel down to the Kenai Peninsula every year to participate in the personal use set gillnet fishery at the mouth of the Kasilof River. This fishery has been closed by emergency order to conserve early run king salmon in the Kenai and Kasilof rivers. The Kasilof River personal use dip net fishery will open by regulation at 12:01 a.m. on June 25.

The Kenai king salmon sport fishery is also closed. Quoting from the news release: “The king salmon sport fishery in the Kenai River will close from the mouth upstream to the outlet of Skilak Lake and in the Moose River from its confluence with the Kenai River upstream to the northernmost edge of the Sterling Highway Bridge beginning at 12:01 a.m., Thursday, June 20. In the Kasilof River sport fishery, the use of bait will be prohibited and gear will be restricted to one unbaited, single-hook, artificial lure downstream of the Sterling Highway Bridge beginning at 12:01 a.m., Thursday, June 20. In addition, the retention of naturally-produced king salmon is currently prohibited in the Kasilof River sport fishery.”

The release goes on to say that, as of June 16, about 57 percent of the early-run of Kenai River king salmon is complete based on average run timing (2002-2012). The total inriver run estimated by sonar and all indices of abundance indicate the run is below average and less than forecast. Although there are indications that king salmon runs throughout Cook Inlet may be later than normal, in-season projections indicate the Kenai River optimal escapement goal (OEG) of 5,300 to 9,000 fish will not be achieved by the end of the season on June 30. Through June 16, the sonar cumulative estimate of king salmon passage into the Kenai River was 969 fish. In-season projections using sonar are for a total run to the river of 1,500 to 2,500 early-run Kenai River king salmon.

And finally, some encouraging, but after-the-fact, news!

My family enjoys eating hooligan, also called eulachon, a member of the smelt family. Last year, we went down to the Twentymile River near Portage on the next-to-last day of the season and my wife dipped 118 fish over a nearly three-hour period. With this year’s weird weather patterns and a bunch of projects needing attention at the house, we skipped the Twentymile trip and hoped for some luck here in the Valley.

In years past, we found Memorial Day weekend to be the best time to dip hooligan in the Susitna drainage. This year’s late breakup with high and dirty water eliminated that timing altogether. However, we did connect on June 9 with a strong run of fish up the Susitna in the Willow area. We collected 182 fish in almost no time. The hooligan dipnetting season closed on June 15.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.