Continuing, “The sport fishery is restricted to catch-and-release only for king salmon. Only one unbaited, single-hook, artificial lure may be used. King salmon may not be retained or possessed. King salmon caught must be released immediately. A person may not remove a king salmon from the water before releasing the fish.”

The reason for this emergency closure is the lack of fish. Only 70 kings have passed the Little Susitna weir as of June 12. This number leads to the projection of 532 kings for the run. The escapement goal range for the Little Susitna is 2,100 to 4,300 kings. If things don’t drastically improve, we’re looking at one of the worst returns in memory of king salmon in this drainage.

We are not alone in this lousy salmon returns year. The Central District has seen Fish and Game issue sport fishing regulation restrictions prohibiting the retention of early-run, tributary spawning king salmon in the Kenai River. Restrictions to sport fishing for king salmon have already been issued for Deep Creek, Anchor River, and Ninilchik River, along with Cook Inlet salt waters due to low run size assessments.

Further, the hours have been reduced for the personal use set gillnet fishery at the mouth of the Kasilof River. Restrictions in the harvest of naturally produced and hatchery released king salmon were enacted in the Kasilof River sport fishery. No naturally produced king salmon may be retained and only one hatchery produced king salmon 20-inches or longer may be harvested. With these restrictions in place, a reduction of fishing time from 17 hours to 12 hours has been imposed on the Kasilof dip net fishery to further reduce the harvest of Kasilof River king salmon.

For further details regarding these emergency order closures or restrictions, check out the emergency order and/or news release pages on the fish and game website.

It’s ironic that fish and game has another news release out promoting a family fishing weekend across the state! That news release is suggesting that families come out and fish the Anchorage Ship Creek youth-only fishery on Saturday, June 16, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. There’s also a youth-only fishery at the Eklutna Tailrace the same day and times in the Valley. Both fisheries are artificial runs created by hatchery stockings, so any harvest will have no impact on wild stocks.

Reflections Lake, at Mile 30 on the Glenn Highway is having a “Fun on the Flats” day, also on Saturday, which is scheduled to include lake fishing along with other activities.

I’m hearing rumors that the Chitna dip net fishery is looking at some restrictions as well. Returns of salmon apparently are poor all around the Southcentral area.

And now, to further add insult to injury, the first five members of the Cook Inlet Salmon Committee have been announced. This committee was established to advise the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council in their redrafting of the federal Fisheries Management Plan for Cook Inlet. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission was told, in meetings with Fish and Game Commissioner, Sam Cotton, who is a member of the NPFMC, that members from the various stakeholder groups involved with the salmon runs in federal waters would, most likely, have a seat on this committee.

While we in the Northern District don’t directly harvest salmon from these federal waters, we depend on scientific management of these runs to get salmon through the commercial fishery and back to the Northern District. We were expecting to be represented on this committee.

Of the announced five members selected, three are commercial drift netters and nobody is from the Northern District. We have most of the declared fisheries Stocks of Concern statewide and our general returning runs of salmon are in trouble, yet we have no representation on this advisory committee. As usual, the area hurting the worst for shear numbers of salmon apparently has no voice in how the feds will manage the returning runs to get sufficient numbers of salmon spawning in Northern District river systems!