Resident king salmon limit near Petersburg is three a day in state waters

Anglers fishing out of Petersburg can keep more king salmon this month: Alaska residents can now take three a day in state waters, and the state recently bumped the nonresident annual limit up to four. The looser limits came because the harvest this summer ran lower than expected — and because a strong hatchery return near town eased the conservation worries that usually keep king fishing tight.

Actually catching one is another matter. Kings are "few and far between at this time of summer," the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Petersburg area biologist, Jeff Rice, wrote in the department's latest report, though a few turn up while trolling for coho. And any king landed now is almost certainly just passing through — a "feeder king" in its ocean phase, not one of this season's spawners, which have already headed upriver.

Most marine waters around Petersburg stay closed to keeping kings, with the opportunity concentrated where hatchery fish return, near town at the Blind Slough and Wrangell Narrows area. Retained kings have to be at least 28 inches, and anyone without a king salmon stamp has to release them.