Cook Inlet's commercial drift fleet is heading to court after Alaska regulators reshaped the way the inlet's salmon are divided, handing more fish to the northern rivers that feed Matanuska-Susitna Borough anglers.
The Alaska Board of Fisheries voted 4-2 at its Anchorage meeting in March to rewrite the Central District drift gillnet management plan. That fleet targets sockeye returning to the Kenai and Kasilof rivers, and the board decided it had been catching too many coho along the way. Board member Mike Wood recused himself from the vote. The regulation states its aim plainly: to "minimize the harvest of Northern District salmon and Kenai River coho salmon in order to provide all users with a reasonable opportunity to harvest these salmon stocks."
The reason is three straight years of weak coho runs into the Deshka and Little Susitna rivers, both of which fell short of their escapement targets.
"Northern Cook Inlet coho salmon escapements have declined with increased use of the central district drift gill net fleet to harvest large returns of Kenai and Kasilof river sockeye during the past three years," said Andy Couch, a Mat-Su fishing guide who campaigned for the overhaul.
The plan trims the fleet's opportunity rather than its calendar. Openings are capped at 16 hours, and when the sockeye harvest slips below three percent of the season's total in early August, drifters are confined to Areas 3 and 4 on the inlet's west side. Alongside that, a Conservation Corridor runs down the centre of state waters from June 19 until an emergency order closes the season, giving coho a clear lane to swim north.
"All those folks who decide to meet the federal regs and fish in the federal waters on a particular day, we cannot put our net in the water," Maw said. "We will get a federal ticket, even though we're fishing legally under state regs in state waters. And that's a problem, and it needs to be worked out."
Board member Tom Carpenter said that was beyond the board's reach. "It's really not the prerogative of this board to deal with what happens in the EEZ," he said, noting it "also kind of confirms ... that fishermen do have the choice to fish where they want."
Even supporters are tempering expectations. Pete Probasco, chair of the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission and a former state commercial fisheries manager, warned that rebuilding the depleted northern coho stocks will not happen in a single season.
The changes arrive in an already lean year. Wild king salmon sport fishing was largely shut from May 1, and the upper inlet's salt waters stay closed to kings into mid-August. "King salmon runs in Cook Inlet are anticipated to be poor in 2026," said Samantha Oslund, an area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
Couch, for one, believes the new approach can work. The plan, he said, "may allow a realistic opportunity for all Northern Cook Inlet coho and sockeye salmon stocks ... to attain annual sustainable escapement goals without requiring inseason sport fishery emergency restrictions." First it has to get past the drift fleet's lawyers.
