Copper River commercial salmon season closes Oct. 13 after weak sockeye and strong coho runs

Commercial salmon fishing in the Copper River and Bering River districts closes for the season at 7 pm Tuesday, Oct. 13, ending a year in which the Copper River sockeye harvest reached only about a third of the preseason forecast while the coho harvest ran well above average. The season began May 14.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game set five more 36-hour drift gillnet periods in each district, starting at 7 am on Sept. 28, Oct. 1, Oct. 5, Oct. 8 and Oct. 12. Fishermen can check the department's recorded gillnet announcements at 907-424-7535.

The last Copper River sockeye harvest figure the department published was 243,000 fish, reached by July 17. The preseason forecast had called for 728,000. Last year's harvest was 840,000, slightly above the 10-year average of 824,000. The fleet's last sockeye-directed period, July 9, brought in 13,100 sockeye, about half of the 27,000 the department projected, and in August the department switched to managing for coho.

King salmon were scarce, too. The department said in late July that the count of large kings at its Miles Lake sonar was the lowest in eight seasons. The number of kings making it upriver to spawn ended near the low end of the 21,000 to 31,000 fish goal, and the commercial Chinook harvest finished at 4,250, about a quarter below last year and about two-thirds below the 10-year average. Overall, the sonar counted about 570,000 salmon by July 28, when counting stopped, about 5 percent short of the roughly 601,000 the department wanted past it by that date. Upriver, the department closed the Chitina personal-use dip net fishery and banned keeping kings there for the season.

Coho have been a different story. The Copper River commercial coho harvest stood at 155,000 fish on Sept. 4, and three openings since then added about 58,000 more. That brings the 2026 total to at least 213,000, already above last year's full-season harvest of 162,000 and the 10-year average of 182,000. In the week ending Sept. 12, surveyors counted about 40,800 coho on the Copper River Delta, above the department's expected range, and about 17,200 in the Bering River District, near the top of its range.

During the remaining openings, waters north of the closure line, within sloughs and inside Boswell Bay stay closed to commercial and subsistence salmon fishing.