Yakutat gillnetters must donate Chinook found dead in Situk nets

Yakutat's set gillnetters open Sunday at noon and fish through Thursday evening in Situk-Ahrnklin Inlet and Yakutat Bay. They cannot keep a king, and any king that dies in the net does not go to waste.

Chinook of any size may not be retained for sale or for personal use. A fisher who pulls up a dead one has to remove the dorsal fin immediately, record it on a fish ticket by number and weight under the disposition code for donated fish, and hand it over — either to a buyer when the sockeye are sold, or to the Fish and Game office in Yakutat, which distributes it to people in the community who need it. The fisher loses both the money and the meat.

The Situk has been closed to Chinook retention since May 30. Fish and Game says the subsistence, sport and commercial fisheries reopen only when weir counts show the escapement goal will be met. Federal subsistence managers, working under their own authority, require incidentally caught kings to be released alive.

The mouth of the Situk is closed to set gillnets west of a marker line running from the eastern bank of Johnson Slough to Sunny Point. The Lost and Tsiu rivers stay closed until further notice. Most of the rest of the Yakutat District, including the East Alsek, Alsek, Akwe and Dangerous rivers, is open from Sunday until noon Wednesday.