Much of Juneau’s king salmon fishery will close this summer due to a 2020 landslide

Anglers in Juneau may be disappointed Monday as king salmon will be largely off-limits this summer. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has announced an emergency closure of most fishing areas along the coast around Juneau.

Douglas Island Pink and Chum, or DIPAC director Katie Harms, said hatchery yields are expected to be quite low this year. That’s because most of the chinook that were set to return were killed when a landslide cut off the hatchery’s freshwater supply from Salmon Creek during an atmospheric river in December 2020 that caused flooding and mudslides in the city.

“We had to prematurely release all those Chinook salmon that were in the raceways at that time,” says Harms. “They ended up in salt water before they were biologically able to process salt water and probably largely died.”

Most hatchery salmon return when they are about five years old, so Harms said this summer’s low run was expected.

The closure includes Auke Bay, Fritz Cove, Gastineau Channel and areas around the Macaulay Salmon Hatchery. As of midnight Monday, all king salmon caught in those areas must be released immediately. That policy runs until the end of August.

Closing the recreational fishery allows more adult chinook to congregate at Fish Creek Pond, one of the local hatchery release sites. The pond will miss most of those five-year-olds, but some six-year-olds should return as well.

“And what we plan to do this year is use seine nets to fish the pond in mid to late July when the vast majority of the fish are back. And they should just be grinding in that pond, waiting until they’re ready to spawn,” Harms said. “And we bring them back to the hatchery. We have done this in the past in other years, so we know it can be successful if there are enough fish.”

Most of Juneau’s summer king salmon come from hatcheries, while most wild king salmon migrate through the area to the Taku River earlier in the spring.

DIPAC plans to use fish from the pond to supplement the hatchery’s brood stock, which will help them maintain summer king production in the future.

“I’m not sure we’ll get our full breeding stock even with this closure in place, but it will get us a lot closer to our goal,” Harms said. “Which in turn would provide better fishing opportunities for those who want to fish in five years.”