08/05/2026
I hate making posts like this but it needs to happen. ADF&G - Sport Fishing Southcentral Alaska has lost all credibility and does not care about about the sport fisheries!!! Their "biology" is based on politics and maybes. Their Emergency Order (EO) for silvers starting tomorrow and lack of action to protect our kings again this summer is proof of that.
This summer the eo "protecting" our kings ended on July 13th. It was asked by multiple people who are on the water daily if they could extend the eo to limit treble hooks and bait because we still had a LARGE number of king salmon holding in the area that would be opened to bait and treble hooks. We were told that a draft emergency order was drafted and would get passed up the chain of command but likely wouldn't get issues.......why?.....because then things get political and if sports fishing gets restricted then the commercial fleet needs to get restricted.
We typically don't start seeing a good and consistent number of silver salmon show up in the creeks and rivers that we fish for another week. Yet we're already being restricted ......why......because they base their fish count off of a weir that has been washed out since the middle of July and every year gets washed out yet they keep throwing money at it. This weir in ONE river is fish and games way of determining how many fish will return to ALL OF THE WATERS in an area that over 20,000 SQUARE MILES, and is larger than 9 states.
Their excuse for limiting fishing in all of the Susitna River drainage...."Due to the poor performance of coho salmon escapement i recent years, this action is warranted to conserve coho salmon is the Susitna River Drainage".....yet last year they closed Deshka (where the weir is) and left the other rivers open.
I'm all for conservation, legal fishing methods, and sustainability but when the commercial drift net fleet pulls 12,000 coho from an area that our fish come from and then the sports fisheries get restricted something is seriously wrong. The commercial fleet pulled the total number of fish from the ocean in ONE day that is needed to make it back in to one river to make fishing sustainable.
