Chignik opens four districts to salmon fishing for 48 hours starting Monday

Chignik seiners get a 48-hour window beginning at 7 am Monday, Sept. 7, when the Chignik Bay, Central, Western and Perryville districts open to commercial salmon fishing. The period closes at 7 am Wednesday, under an advisory the Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued Saturday afternoon.

One piece of the Chignik Bay District stays off limits. The lagoon waters south of Humes Point are closed, under a notice signed by Chignik area management biologist Teresa Fish.

The kings are the reason for the restrictions that come with it. The Chignik Chinook run has missed its biological escapement goal, the 1,300 to 2,700 fish that have to reach the spawning grounds, in six of the last seven years. Escapement hit record lows of 731 fish in 2022 and 267 in 2023, then 1,166 in 2024. Last year the run cleared the floor at 1,391 kings, only the second time inside the goal range in nine years. The department has been imposing conservation measures by emergency order ahead of final Board of Fisheries regulations, including an August opening that covered two districts and part of a third while three stayed shut. Its 2025 annual management report says the accumulated restrictions have contributed to "economic hardship and depopulation in the region."

Gear rules carry over. Purse seine boats may not retain Chinook 28 inches or longer and have to release them unharmed. Kings that come up visibly injured or dead must be kept and recorded on a fish ticket, the state catch record.