Alaska opens all of Togiak to fishing with the sockeye count far below goal

Alaska is opening every section of the Togiak District to commercial fishing Monday morning — even though just 36,090 sockeye have passed the counting tower, well under the 120,000 the run needs at minimum to sustain itself.

The Department of Fish and Game called the escapement "far below expectations" in the same announcement that opened the fishery, and did not explain why it's letting boats fish with the count so low. The 2026 Togiak run was forecast "poor" before the season began.

For the small fleet that works Togiak out of Dillingham, the opening comes with a catch: gear goes in the water Monday at 9 a.m., but managers won't set the closing time until Tuesday or Wednesday, once they've counted more fish.

The stakes cut both ways. Too much harvest on a weak run leaves too few fish on the spawning grounds to rebuild it; too little leaves salmon that Togiak and Twin Hills families rely on for subsistence, and that the region's fishermen and processors count on to make the season pay.