Credit Katie Basile / KYUK
The entire Kuskokwim River will open full-time to subsistence fishing with gillnets beginning at 12:01 a.m. on July 31. At that time, gillnet restrictions on the river will be liberalized to include any size mesh, and nets can stretch up to 50 fathoms in length.
Data from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game shows that king, chum, and sockeye salmon have almost entirely passed Bethel, and coho is now the dominant salmon species in the lower Kuskokwim.
The Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, in consultation with the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, instated gillnet restrictions on June 1 to conserve king salmon. As the summer progressed, conservation concerns extended to the river’s record low chum salmon run.
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Federal managers say that they’re not sure how the state-issued opener will be enforced. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) declared a driftnet opening in the lower Kuskokwim River for this coming Monday, June 28, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
But before the summer fishing season began, the Yukon-Delta National Wildlife Refuge declared federal management of the lower Kuskokwim River salmon fishery. They did so under ANILCA, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, to help conserve king salmon.
The feds have not issued an opening on June 28, and federal manager Boyd Blihovde said that they do not plan to. Blihovde said that the state’s announcement for the opening is illegal and illegitimate.