Commercial salmon gillnetters were back at work in Cook Inlet on Wednesday as state fishery managers tried to stem the flow of sockeye salmon into the Kenai River in keeping with the […]
Endless fish fight
Yes, no, maybe
Only days after over-seeing the deaths of nearly 90,000 Upper Cook Inlet coho salmon in two commercial drift gillnet openings in the belief the coho run was late and strong, fishery […]
Mat-Su coho struggle
No sooner does one Cook Inlet salmon crisis pass than another erupts. This times its coho salmon in the spotlight. Little Susitna River guide Andy Couch said Wednesday he felt like he’d […]
Dipnet curtain falls
The big school of sockeye salmon swarming into upper Cook Inlet in time for the last weekend of the state’s most popular personal-use dipnet fishery wasn’t quite big enough to punch its […]
Back in business
All it took was a few days of a Cook Inlet free of gillnets, and sockeye salmon were flooding the Kenai River. Since Tuesday, about 300,000 have stormed past the fish-counting sonar […]
The curtain falls
Update: Just after this story posted, the catch numbers for Saturday’s commercial opening were reported. There was a catch of 150,120 sockeye on the day bringing the season total to 912,069 sockeye. […]
Suffering Little Su
Update: This story has been updated and extensively rewrwitten to reflect the Little Susitna finally made escapement and to include information from a state genetics study of Chinook from Northern Cook […]
Victim of the state
Once revered for world-leading skills at managing wild salmon, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game today finds itself under attack as incompetent as the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council begins court-ordered […]
Who got the fish
News analysis With what passes for mainstream media in Alaska making nice in the wake of the spring meeting of the Alaska Board of Fisheries, it appears possible some board members […]
Net fisheries win
Commercial fishermen looking to cast their salmon-snagging gillnets wider in Cook Inlet appear to have won the hearts of the members of the Alaska Board of Fisheries. The state regulatory authority was […]
