Bristol Bay's Nushagak opened late this year to protect its king salmon

Bristol Bay's Nushagak District opened weeks late this season, and the reason was king salmon, not sockeye.

Through late June, every sockeye harvest in the bay was coming from two other districts, Egegik and Ugashik. The Nushagak stayed closed because of rules meant to protect its Chinook, a run the state has listed as a stock of concern since 2022.

That designation puts a management plan in force, and the Board of Fisheries tightened it last year. It raised the share of the sockeye run that has to show up before Nushagak fishing can start, from 6 to 8 percent on the Nushagak River and from 10 to 12 percent on the Wood River. Higher thresholds mean a later opening, on purpose. The same rules bar permit holders from keeping the kings they catch for their own use, requiring them to be sold or donated to a nonprofit or tribal group.

The state's case is that the delay protects a depleted king run while still allowing a sockeye fishery later on. And the Chinook run is in real trouble: the department projected about 38,600 kings would reach the river against a goal of 95,000, roughly 40 percent of it.

But the timing costs fishermen. The Nushagak took 16.6 million sockeye in 2025, one of its biggest harvests in memory, and the fleet counts on the first weeks of the run for much of its catch. A conservation plan built around king thresholds doesn't weigh that dependency; it assumes the boats can absorb a later start. Both things are true at once, and the season is where they collide.

Baywide, the sockeye harvest is running below expectations. The state's preliminary count puts Bristol Bay at 29.7 million sockeye, about 89 percent of the preseason forecast, and at the season's peak the catch ran 40 percent below the year before.