And We're Off And Running With The Copper River Salmon Season!

Copper River Management Update 

May 30, 2025 

Tracy R. Hansen, Area Management Biologist, Glennallen  

Shane Shephard, Fishery Biologist, aiming a sonar counting unit at Miles Lake.
(Photo, ADF&G, Division of Commercial Fisheries) 

Here is this week’s management update on Copper River fisheries. 

 

Commercial Fishery:

The Copper River District commercial fishery had its second opening of the season this past Monday, May 26. Approximately 950 king salmon and 52,000 sockeye salmon were harvested. This harvest was below anticipated for this period for both king and sockeye salmon. Remember, Monday’s opener was specifically delayed to intentionally reduce king salmon harvest, but also likely reduced sockeye salmon harvest. Total harvest in the commercial fishery to date is about 2,040 king salmon and 80,000 sockeye salmon.

 

The king salmon harvest from this past Monday’s (May 26) commercial fishing period was lower than previous years for this same period and in some of those years, the king salmon escapement goal was not met. While it is still very early to get a true read on the size of the king salmon run based on inriver assessment projects, the commercial fishery manager decided to take action to conserve king salmon and did not open the commercial fishery on Thursday, May 29. Generally, the commercial fishing periods near the end of May produce the largest commercial king salmon harvests each season. The tough decision to hold off on what would have been the 3^rd opener was made to help ensure the king salmon escapement goal is met.

 

To continue conservative management for king salmon but allow for harvest of more abundant sockeye salmon, the commercial fishery plans to open tomorrow, Saturday, May 31 for 12-hours using a further offshore boundary. This offshore boundary will attempt to reduce king salmon harvest, even more than the expanded inside closed waters, while concurrently allowing for sockeye salmon harvest. We will see what Saturday’s fishing period brings on whether or not this will be considered a successful, middle-of-the-road approach to allow for sockeye salmon harvest opportunity while protecting king salmon.

 

Miles Lake SONAR:

Total salmon passage past the sonar is 82,862 fish through yesterday, May 29. This is about 20,000 more fish than the total management objective for this date. Earlier this week, daily passage had been consistently increasing but for the past 2 days, passage numbers have dropped off a bit.  Regardless, daily counts have been exceeding the daily expected passage except for yesterday, May 30.

You can monitor the sonar counts, and how they compare to the anticipated or expected counts, by CLICKING HERE. Miles Lake sonar counts are also found on the Department’s Fish Counts webpage.

 

The Miles Lake sonar uses an ARIS system to apportion large king salmon from the counts at the sonar. Apportionment data from both bank’s sonar units only began a few days ago, on May 26, because the Copper River had been too low to deploy the apportionment lens to the sonar unit on the South bank.  While this apportionment data provides additional insight on king salmon, the apportionment method to count king salmon has not undergone an indepth analysis or review on how those data compare the NVE mark-recapture project. Until this project is vetted, it is only used to help validate our existing opinions on king salmon run strength from other sources such as commercial harvest and NVE catches. Another big take away is to remember that the ARIS apportionment is not used to determine if we met our king salmon escapement goal. 

 

Native Village of Eyak (NVE) Fish Wheels:

Since our last update, NVE Baird Canyon catch rates have been increasing each day. As of yesterday, May 28, a total of 335 king salmon have been captured and released. At this stage, it’s still too early to have clear speculation on which way the run is heading. 

 

The upriver Canyon Creek camp captured their first king salmon of the season on May 26 and so far, 4 king salmon have been caught.  None of the king salmon have been “recaptures”, meaning fish tagged at Baird and caught again upriver.  The ratio of marked to unmarked king salmon is used to estimate abundance and is critical, inseason information used for our projections.

 

Copper River:

You can monitor the Copper River stage gauge in Chitina online at the NOAA site. The river is still very low for this time of year and has remained at one of its lowest readings for the past week.

 

CHITINA SUBDISTRICT PERSONAL USE FISHERY:

The Chitina Subdistrict Personal Use salmon dip net fishery is tentatively scheduled to open at 12pm noon on Thursday, June 12 but the actual opening date and time has not yet been announced.  The first Advisory Announcement for the official opening will be released this upcoming Wednesday, June 4.

 

This week’s sonar counts (May 26-June 1) will be used to determine fishing time for the week of June 9. Many folks have asked me if the personal use fishery will open earlier, on June 10. At this point in time, it is still too soon to tell as we will be considering counts through this Sunday.  Over the past several years, participation and harvest in the dipnet fishery during that week of the fishery has been relatively large. Those higher catch rates are considered when calculating fishing time, so we must ensure adequate fish abundance is available to determine any increase in fishing hours.

Cutting fish by the river in Chitina in the early 2000s. 
(Photo by Copper River Country Journal)

GLENNALLEN SUBDISTRICT SUBSISTENCE FISHERY:

The Glennallen Subdistrict subsistence salmon fishery opens this Sunday, June 1.  Federally qualified rural residents have been able to fish since May 15.  

 

SPORT FISHERIES:

King salmon may begin to show up at the mouth of the Gulkana River this weekend. It’s still a few weeks away (mid-June) before any considerable numbers of sockeye salmon will be entering the Klutina River.

  

Ongoing salmon research in 2025:

The tower crew heading up the Gulkana River yesterday afternoon to open camp. Tower installation will begin tomorrow. Once operational, the tower counts will be published on the Fish Counts webpage. I anticipate the tower being fully operational and counting by June 3, as the water level continues to drop on the Gulkana River.

 

Through yesterday, May 29, a total of 82 sockeye salmon have been radiotagged. A total of 4 tagged fish have swam past our lower Copper River tracking station, located on the Copper River between the Tonsina River and the Chitina Airport, and our furthest upriver tag was detected between the Klutina and Tonsina Rivers as of Tuesday (May 27) afternoon.  

 

If you catch a radio-tagged salmon, we ask that you contact the office at 907-822-3309 so we can collect data on when and where the fish was harvested, and the tag number located on the tag itself. Also, if you can return the tag to us in a timely manner, it can be reused this season and put into another salmon.  Please mail in or drop off your radio tags. There is a drop box out front of the office if you pass through Glennallen after-hours.

 

WHAT WE ARE WATCHING FOR NOW:

SOCKEYE SALMON:  We will continue to monitor and track daily passage and how that compares to the anticipated passage. Additional days of sonar data are needed before any projection on total inriver abundance for this season can be made. Thursday’s (May 29) commercial closure could result in a sizeable pulse of sockeye salmon moving inriver.

 

KING SALMON: Even though a week has passed, king salmon run strength inriver is still largely unknown. The commercial fishery has potential to harvest a large amount of king salmon in a single opener and because of that, a lot of caution has been taken. We will continue to watch the catch rates at the NVE fish wheels. Hopefully, the conservative management of the commercial fishery is allowing adequate numbers of king salmon inriver.

 

NEXT DECISION TIME: On Sunday, the commercial manager will be assessing harvest data from Saturday’s opener–in tandem with watching the sonar and king salmon indices closely through the weekend–to make a decision for a potential opener on Monday. Also on Monday, I will be reviewing the sonar counts to determine how many hours the personal use fishery will be open for its first week of the season.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read through this update and feel free to reach out with any questions. I will try my best to answer them.

 

Tracy R. Hansen

Area Management Biologist

Upper Copper/Upper Susitna 

Alaska Department of Fish & Game

Division of Sport Fish – Glennallen

907.822.3309