Monday December 9, 2024
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner —
Get your dip nets ready. Grab the fish bonker. Make room in the freezer.
It’s still early but the Copper River red salmon run is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever and the river should be full of fish when the Chitina personal use dip net fishery opens on June 7.
Fish are flooding by a sonar counter at Miles Lake, about 70 miles downstream of Chitina, in record numbers. On Monday, the sonar estimate was 71,645, which was almost 20,000 fish more than the previous one-day record. On Tuesday, the sonar estimate jumped up to 83,062, setting another one-day record.
“There’s a lot of sockeye coming,” is how area management biologist Mark Somerville with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Glennallen put it. “If the river cooperates it should be pretty phenomenal fishing.”