Yakutat's king run is coming up short, and the closures keep stacking up

The Chinook run on Yakutat's Situk River isn't showing up in the numbers it needs to, and the fishery has been closed to keeping kings for weeks. Subsistence, commercial, and sport — none can retain a Chinook in the Situk-Ahrnklin Inlet, and the state has now extended that closure three straight weeks running.

The shortfall is the story. The state projected a run of about 900 large kings this year against an escapement goal of 500 to 1,000 — already a thin margin — and the fish haven't come in strong enough to meet it. The run isn't expected to reach even the 750-fish threshold that would let dual-permit fishing go ahead. Anyone who nets a king by accident has to cut off its dorsal fin and log it as donated.

For Yakutat, the Situk's kings feed freezers and anchor both a commercial and a sport fishery, so a run this short lands hard. The state's emergency orders keep the closure in place until further notice.