Citing a weak silver salmon run, state halts sportfishing at Ship Creek in Anchorage through Sept. 30

Citing a weak coho salmon run, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said Wednesday it was halting sportfishing at Ship Creek in Anchorage through Sept. 30.

The emergency order is effective 12:01 a.m. on Saturday and covers the creek from its mouth upstream to a cable 100 feet downstream of the Chugach power plant dam.

“Only 181 coho salmon were counted during a survey of Ship Creek near the hatchery on August 19,” area sportfishing management biologist Brittany Blain-Roth said in a written statement. “Typically, on average, we count around 800 coho salmon in the same section of creek during this week, and at this point every coho salmon counts.”

The action continues a trend of responses to this summer’s poor coho, or silver salmon, run in Southcentral. On Aug. 12, Fish and Game announced a reduced the bag limit to one unbaited fish in the Anchorage Bowl drainages. It also closed the Susitna River, Little Susitna River and Knik River drainages to coho fishing through Sept. 30.

[With few exceptions, Southcentral Alaska’s coho salmon run is sluggish]

Also on Wednesday, Fish and Game announced the bag limit for coho 16 inches or longer caught in fresh waters of the Kenai Peninsula, excluding the Kenai River, would be reduced from two to one. That order is also effective 12:01 a.m. Saturday and runs through the end of the year. The bag limit on the Kenai River was also limited to one fish, but only through the end of August.

Fish and Game said it will continue to monitor escapement numbers to the William Jack Hernandez hatchery in Anchorage, but doesn’t anticipate relaxing restrictions during the remainder of the coho salmon run.