King salmon fishing in the upper Cook Inlet this summer is not looking fruitful. The Department of Fish and Game issued an emergency order earlier this week leading to closers for king fishing in the upper Cook Inlet and in Mat-Su rivers.
But the forecast for kings on the Anchor and Ninilchik rivers are looking pretty good. Matt Miller is the Regional Fisheries Management Coordinator for Cook Inlet.
“There’s an escapement goal, which is how many fish we'd like to see, King Salmon, we'd like to see back up on the spawning grounds of 3,800 to 7,600,” he said. “The forecast for the upcoming season is for 7,500. So our forecast is up at the upper end of that goal.”
About 5,800 chinook returned to the Anchor River in 2017 and just under 1,000 were counted in the Ninilchik River.
Miller said even though king populations in the lower and upper Cook Inlet are related, this year’s dismal forecast in Susitna and Little Su doesn’t necessarily mean a bad year for the lower portion of the inlet.
“It’s certainly possible to have strong returns down to the Anchor and still have Deshka or Willow Creek experience poor productivity for other reasons,” he said. “There's so many factors that it's not Cook Inlet wide. It can be stream specific or certainly drainage specific so it's not tied that closely although we certainly look at as an indication.”
Sport anglers can expect 2018 lower Cook Inlet regulations to be the same as last year. It’s one fish daily bag limit for kings 20 inches or longer with an annual limit of five fish of the same size. But like the rest of the state, lower Cook Inlet did have some bad years for king salmon. Miller said the rivers are starting to recover.
“It seems to be coming back up” he said. “You know the road back up is going to have little ticks and jumps in it—it’s not going to be a straight line up. But I think generally speaking we're hopefully coming back out of this. We'll watch optimistically.”
This is just in time for the Homer’s Winter King Tournament. The annual contest will be held on March 24 where anglers will have a shot at catching those fish before they head up the river.
