Tanana subsistence and personal use fishing goes 24 hours

Subsistence fishers from Manley and Minto out to Tok and Northway can fish the Tanana around the clock starting 8 am Tuesday, with the gear limits that governed the fall run lifted. Gillnets up to 7.5-inch mesh, no cap on net length, every day of the week, and all fish may be kept.

Around Fairbanks, North Pole and Salcha, personal use salmon fishing opens on the same schedule, with 6-inch or smaller mesh and fish wheels.

Fish and Game says the fall chum migration is nearly complete and every Alaskan tributary is on track to meet its spawning goal. Earlier this month the department put the run above 900,000 fish against a Yukon-wide goal of 300,000 to 600,000.

That is a different river than the one people fished last year. The 2025 fall chum run came in around 184,000, the fifth lowest on record, and it was the sixth straight year subsistence fishing was restricted. Sharon Hildebrand of Nulato, chief and chairman of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, told a Senate committee in April that "subsistence harvests in many communities have been reduced to nearly zero."

One part of the run is still in trouble. Canadian-origin fall chum remain well below average, and the department says projections are too uncertain to allow fishing directed at them under the treaty with Canada.

Permits are still required: subsistence permits for salmon up to the Wood River, for northern pike in the Tolovana drainage, and for all species in the Upper Tanana area. Personal use requires a sport fishing license. Federal waters adjacent to federal land are open under a matching federal action.