Upper Koyukuk and Innoko villages can keep every salmon again starting Monday

Families in six Koyukuk River villages and in Shageluk can keep every salmon they catch starting at 8 a.m. Monday, Aug. 17. Since the fall season began, fishers had to release Chinook, chum and coho alive, keeping only pink and sockeye.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game order opens three stretches, each only upstream of a line the order fixes by coordinates and a map rather than by any landmark: the Koyukuk River drainage, covering Huslia, Hughes, Allakaket, Alatna, Bettles and Wiseman; the Innoko River drainage; and Paimiut Slough, serving Shageluk. Fishing is open around the clock with 6-inch or smaller mesh gillnets and other legal subsistence gear, and all fish caught may be retained. Downriver of those three lines the old rules stand.

Above Bettles, including Wiseman, a subsistence permit is required for all species, gillnet mesh is capped at 3½ inches, and that gear cannot be used until Aug. 20.

Historical genetic analysis confirms the chum in these drainages are summer chum, not the Canadian-origin fall chum protected elsewhere, and ADF&G put the preliminary 2026 summer chum run at just over 1 million fish, inside the drainagewide goal of 500,000 to 1.2 million. As of Aug. 13, fall chum passage sat above the lower end of the 300,000 to 600,000 escapement goal at the run's midpoint. The mainstem stays closed to 6-inch mesh because Canadian treaty goals, 70,000 to 104,000 fall chum in the mainstem Yukon and 22,000 to 49,000 in the Fishing Branch River, are not expected to be met.

The Board of Fisheries designated fall chum salmon a stock of management concern at its most recent meeting. ADF&G says the Koyukuk and Innoko do not carry significant numbers of fall chum, so the opening does not risk intercepting Canadian-origin fish; the federal bulletin puts the Chinook run at 99% complete in these tributaries.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a matching temporary special action, TSA 03-FC-07-26, for federal public waters there, limiting harvest to federally qualified subsistence users of the Yukon River drainage. It expires Dec. 31 unless superseded. Matt Olson, the state area management biologist, is the contact on the state order, and recorded fishing schedules and counts run at 1-866-479-7387.