The restoration areas of Resurrection Creek. Alaska has the opportunity to address a significant factor right now: maintaining the rivers where kings return home to spawn and where juvenile fish begin their lives. There’s no denying that sustaining king salmon runs for future generations will take a holistic approach that addresses all contributing factors, and that this issue needs to be addressed soon, before it’s too late. Catch-and-release is a great way to still enjoy fishing for kings, but when these fisheries once supported harvest and no longer have the numbers to do so, it is cause for concern.īiologists have been studying the decline of king salmon for over a decade, but rather than pointing to a single cause, their results instead list many contributing factors: warming oceans and rivers, overfishing, loss of habitat, and more.
As of January 2022, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) had already released four emergency orders restricting wild king salmon fishing to catch-and-release only in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and on the Kenai Peninsula. King runs across Alaska have been in decline, and Southcentral’s Kenai Peninsula and Matanuska-Susitna Borough fisheries are not immune to that trend. These factors might have you planning your next fishing trip in southcentral Alaska, but unfortunately the reality of king fishing here today isn’t all strong runs and tight lines.
The region boasts plentiful and world-renowned fishing opportunities, it’s the location of the state’s major population and travel hub, and it is accessible on the road system, unlike many other places in Alaska. The famed Kenai River still holds the world record for the largest sport-caught king at a whopping 97 pounds, 4 ounces. The region’s mighty Susitna River is the fourth-largest king salmon run in Alaska.
Southcentral Alaska has historically accounted for 60% of the state’s Chinook salmon sportfish harvest and with good reason. If you are fishing in Alaska with the hope of catching the official state fish-the Chinook, or king salmon-there’s a chance you will wet your line in the southcentral region of the state.
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