Commercial salmon fishing will be closed on Monday to set gillnets in the Kenai, Kasilof and East Forelands sections of the Upper Cook Inlet and to drift gillnets in all waters of the Central District.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Division of Commercial Fisheries issued an emergency order on Sunday which stated that the estimated sockeye passage in the Kenai River as of Saturday is about 48 percent complete and the sonar has counted just about 307,000 fish.
“Based upon this level of passage, the minimum Kenai River inriver (sonar) goal of 900,000 fish will not be achieved,” the release said. “Therefore, closing the Upper Subdistrict set gillnet and Central District drift gillnet fisheries on Monday, July 24, 2017 is warranted.”
No other areas are affected and will fish the regularly scheduled period on Monday, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., except for the Western Subdistrict south of Redoubt Point, which will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
On Saturday, 14,280 sockeye salmon were counted through Kenai River sonar, totaling 306,554 to date since the start of the late run on July 1. In comparison, on July 22 in 2016, the Kenai River sonar had already counted 676,875 sockeye salmon.
This year, the inriver goal is between 900,000 and 1,100,000 late-run sockeye salmon, with sonar measuring at the Kenai River Mile 19 sonar site.
