Deep Inlet fishery reopens to commercial fleets after NSRAA cost recovery ends

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has reopened the Deep Inlet Terminal Harvest Area south of Sitka to common-property commercial salmon fishing after the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association completed cost-recovery operations. The area had been closed to common-property commercial harvest since June 28 while NSRAA, the hatchery association, fished to recoup production costs. The department's commercial fisheries index lists a Deep Inlet Terminal Harvest Area Fishery Announcement dated Aug. 13, but the full text of that order was not available; the reopening's effective time, eligible gear types and operating conditions cannot be confirmed from the record on hand. ADF&G's inseason salmon summary states the terminal harvest area remains closed to common-property commercial harvest until cost-recovery operations are complete.

The common-property season ran June 1 through June 27, with purse seiners, drift gillnetters and trollers fishing staggered schedules. Under Emergency Order 1E1426, seine and gillnet fishers had to retain all Chinook, sellable at any size, while trollers could keep only kings over 28 inches. Gillnets carried a 6-inch minimum mesh through June 20 to protect wild sockeye salmon. Deep Inlet has recorded 1,300 Chinook and 12,900 chum so far this season.

NSRAA projected 13,900 Chinook, 37,000 coho and 1,763,000 chum for Medvejie Hatchery and the terminal harvest area. That rotation and the midseason cost-recovery closure are written into the state's Deep Inlet management plan under 5 AAC 33.376, which divides the hatchery harvest among seine, gillnet and troll gear and allows the department to close the area by emergency order while the hatchery operator fishes for cost recovery. The same framework has shaped other northern Southeast openings this year: Alaska News earlier covered NSRAA closing Southeast Cove and Crawfish Inlet to common-property chum for all of 2026. No direct comment from affected purse seine, drift gillnet or troll fishers, or from NSRAA, was available for this report.