Strong chum run opens Tanana coho fishing and more gear this weekend

Personal use fishers on the Tanana River can start keeping coho salmon and using more gear this weekend, after a strong fall chum run gave the state room to loosen the rules. Starting 6 pm Friday, Sept. 4, fishers between the Wood and Salcha rivers may set gillnets, dip nets and fish wheels and keep coho — a step up from the chum-only, release-all-coho fishery in place since late August.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game tied the change to a fall chum run it now expects to top 900,000 fish, well above the 300,000 to 600,000 it wants reaching the spawning grounds. Subsistence fishing for both chum and coho in District 6 opens the same evening, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a matching order reopening the harvest in federal waters, where only federally qualified subsistence users may fish.

Coho are the weaker of the two runs — projected at 107,000 to 138,000 fish, below the long-run average — but the department says the run is still strong enough to support subsistence harvest. The Fairbanks-area subdistrict stays on its two 42-hour openings a week.

Fishers need a personal use salmon permit and a sport fishing license. Yukon Area permits expire Oct. 15, with harvest reports due Oct. 25.