Prince William Sound seine season ends Monday, after Friday's Cannery Creek opening

Prince William Sound's purse seine season is expected to close for 2026 at 8 pm Monday, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said Friday. All six districts are open 8 am to 8 pm Saturday through Monday, and permit holders wanting more should call the department in Cordova.

On Friday, seiners had the Cannery Creek Subdistrict from 8 am to 8 pm, including waters normally off-limits: the hatchery's Terminal Harvest Area, a buffer kept between the hatchery and the fishing grounds, and its Special Harvest Area, where the hatchery's own cost-recovery harvest is taken to pay for its operations.

The opening came the day after the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corporation finished its pink salmon egg take, the collection that seeds next year's run. All Sound districts are under fall coho management through September. Buyers need a completed processor registration form before taking fish off boats.

A 2013 department evaluation found hatchery pinks straying into wild-stock streams near Cannery Creek at rates as high as 15.1 percent, and recommended protecting wild stocks from hatchery impacts. Openings in the terminal areas have continued on the same egg-take-then-fish schedule since.