Tanana subsistence and personal use fishing goes 24 hours

Subsistence fishers from Manley and Minto to Tok and Northway may fish around the clock with larger gillnets as of 8 a.m. Tuesday, September 22, after the Alaska Department of Fish and Game lifted the gear and schedule limits that governed the Tanana River through the fall run. In 6-A, 6-B and the Upper Tanana Area that means 7.5-inch or smaller mesh gillnets and all other legal subsistence gear, salmon and nonsalmon, seven days a week; the 60-foot net cap is gone and all fish may be retained.

Personal use salmon fishing in Subdistrict 6-C, covering Fairbanks, North Pole and Salcha, opened on the same schedule with 6-inch or smaller mesh gillnets and fish wheels.

The announcement, Emergency Order 3-S-FY-09-26, says the fall chum migration is nearing completion and projections indicate the run is likely to meet every Alaskan tributary's goal for fish left to spawn. Earlier this month ADF&G put the run above 900,000 fish against a Yukon drainagewide goal of 300,000 to 600,000. The same update said Canadian-origin fall chum remain well below average, with projections too uncertain to allow directed fishing on them under the Canada treaty.

The 2025 season ended with a drainagewide fall chum run of roughly 184,000 fish, the fifth lowest on record and a sixth straight year of subsistence restriction. Sharon Hildebrand of Nulato, Chief/Chairman of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, told the Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee on April 16 that "subsistence harvests in many communities have been reduced to nearly zero."

A subsistence permit is required for salmon up to the Wood River, northern pike in the Tolovana drainage, and all species in the Upper Tanana Area; personal use permits require a sport fishing license. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued matching Federal Special Action 03-FC-16-26 for waters adjacent to federal land.