Cook Inlet's salmon season opens June 22 — and could slam shut early

The last two years, so many reds came back they went uncaught. The rule behind that is still on the books.

Cook Inlet's federal salmon fishery opens June 22, and the same rule that left fish in the water the past two years is still on the books.

Here's the problem. The boats are after sockeye — the red salmon that pay the bills — and lately there have been almost too many. The last two summers, returns ran double, even triple, the targets for fish reaching the spawning grounds. Plenty could have been caught. They weren't.

The reason is a different, far less common fish: coho. The rules shut down the entire season the moment the catch of any single species hits its limit — and the coho limit, for a fish the boats snag by accident while chasing sockeye, is set low: under two-thirds of what scientists said was safe. Hit that coho number, and the nets come out of the water even if reds are still pouring in.

That's the cloud over roughly 292 drift-gillnet permit holders, plus charter guides, processors, and the towns that live on the catch. Federal managers say they're being cautious with a fish they don't have good data on, and they can adjust the limits midseason — they just can't add fishing days the way the state can. For what it's worth, the coho cap hasn't actually shut the season down in its two years on the books.

The season runs through August 15 — unless one fish ends it first.