PWS sockeye season ends with low returns as fleet pivots to coho

Prince William Sound commercial fishers wrapped up the 2026 sockeye season this week facing income losses that will take a strong coho run in August to offset, if coho show up at all. One fisher described the season as "one of the lowest recorded salmon returns in my lifetime," with no Copper River sockeye available and only limited PWS sockeye to show for the effort. That account stands in some tension with ADF&G's preseason forecast, which classified the 2026 Copper River sockeye total run as average at about 1.455 million fish. The outcome is a contrast to 2025, when the PWS area commercial salmon harvest across all species reached 51.6 million fish and the Miles Lake sonar exceeded its inriver run goal.

The closing days were difficult for many in the fleet. According to one fisher's account, Fish and Game closed the outside area of the district to allow wild pink salmon to continue to their spawning grounds, pushing the remaining fleet inside the bay for a final opener. That conservation tradeoff came at a direct cost to earnings: what one fisher described as a space where two or three boats would typically work drew roughly 40 vessels. Catch rates ran at two to three fish per hour, and about half the fish were already spawned out. "Too small of area for us all to make any money," that fisher said. "It is what it is."

The economic concern runs deeper than one bad opener. ADF&G entered the season forecasting an average Copper River sockeye run of about 1.455 million fish, but the Coghill Lake sockeye forecast, one Prince William Sound stock among several, was already classified as Weak before the season opened, at 104,000 fish, 53% below the 10-year average. The 2026 Copper River Chinook total run forecast is also weak at 33,000 fish, 27% below the recent 10-year average, adding pressure heading into fall. A run that tracks average at the sonar does not necessarily translate to harvestable fish distributed where the fleet can reach them, at the right time, in the right condition.

For at least one PWS fisher, the next move is already set: after a couple of weeks with family on the Sound and Kenai Peninsula, he plans to return to the Copper River for coho season, a fishery that represents an important next opportunity for some in the fleet to recover from a difficult summer.