One place near Anchorage where you can still keep a king

With king salmon fishing shut across nearly every wild run in the Mat-Su and Northern Cook Inlet, there's exactly one place left near Anchorage where you can still keep a king: the Eklutna Tailrace.

"The Eklutna Tailrace is the only area open to harvest for kings in the Northern Cook Inlet management area," said area biologist Samantha Oslund. "This is a stocked fishery; you can use bait and multiple hooks." Fishing there is good right now and expected to hold through the week.

The reason it's open when everything around it is closed is the reason it exists: these are hatchery fish, raised to be caught, so taking them doesn't touch the wild runs the state is trying to protect. And those wild runs are all off-limits — kings are closed across the entire Susitna and Little Susitna drainages and West Cook Inlet through mid-July, part of the same statewide collapse that has shuttered king fishing from the Kenai to the Yukon this summer. Even where you can fish for other species in the Susitna, you're restricted to a single barbless-style hook to avoid accidentally killing a king.

A few other nearby waters stay open for other fish: Jim Creek (no kings) through July 31, weekend-only sockeye on Cottonwood Creek, and Fish Creek off Knik-Goose Bay through July 14.