A Petersburg-area drift gillnet fishery opens for about 40 hours

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will open a fishing section near Petersburg to unrestricted drift gillnet fishing for about 40 hours, starting at 8:01 pm Tuesday, Aug. 11, and running through noon Thursday, Aug. 13. The department issued the advisory Saturday from its Petersburg Area Office.

The opening follows a purse seine fishery in the same waters, which runs from 5 am Monday through 8 pm Tuesday; the drift gillnet fishery opens there when the seine fishery does. The broader Petersburg-area district stays open longer, from midday Sunday through noon Thursday, giving fishers a wider window to plan around the shorter opening.

The timing matters most to the people who fish it. For Petersburg commercial salmon fishers, the schedule determines when they can legally work the area, and a shift of even a day changes when boats, crews, buyers and processors can mobilize for a short opening. Purse seine operators run on their own clock, since their window ends before the drift gillnet opener begins.

The opening comes without the gear limits that shaped earlier Petersburg-area fishing this summer. Alaska News previously covered a 48-hour extension that carried a 6-inch maximum mesh size and some area closures. Fish and Game has also reported below-average chum harvests for a sixth straight week at the Point Gardner and Kingsmill test fisheries, which have closed for the season, and statewide it projects a 2026 pink salmon harvest of 56 million fish, down about 64 million from 2025.

Drift gillnetting draws scrutiny beyond harvest numbers. The National Marine Fisheries Service has flagged the gear generally as a conservation concern for its potential effects on marine mammals and non-target catch — a concern that applies to the method broadly, not to this specific opening.