I don't get a lot of fresh fishing news where I am, but I was checking out the Alaska Fly Fishers bulletin board (www.akflyfishers.org/forum/index.html) and the string 'Yukon Water Shed' was quite an eye-opener. Apparently the King run is 95% down and the Chums are 98% down in the Yukon river system. The State stopped ALL fishing. In SE the pinks are largely no-shows, but might just be late. Only a strong showing of silvers in Bristol Bay could avert a disaster.

Does anyone on the Board have any other news on what's happening in Alaska and why? Big Bob, any thoughts from Sodoltna (where everything seems to be more or less normal)?

There is an article in the new fishletter about this. www.newsdata.com/enernet/fishletter/#5

Snagly, I have friends guiding up in AK, including the Kenai. The consensus is that the early run of Kenai Kings was way down from normal and the late June thru July run has been run hot & cold so far. This reflects a pattern for AK this year. I have read released lierature that suggests the ocean feed patterns that have helped the Oregon & Washington runs rebound this year, and beyond by biologist's predictions, have hurt many of the AK runs. I don't understand how that could be because I thought many of our stocks feed up in AK waters. Particularly around the Prince William Sound areas. Of course many of our stocks don't go up there though. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years. Gee, maybe someday our guides can charge outrageous prices for Alaskans & Canadians to fish down here? Nah. - RT

Reel Truth, Chinook from Oregon and Washington feed up as far as cook inlet and out to Kodiak not all of them but enough to say they do frequent the areas. However extensive tag recovery information shows that coho from washington rarely venture into Alaskan costal waters and Oregon coho virtually never do.
Alaska did for a fact expierence a n increase in run size for all spieces at about the same time as oreidawa was in a decline and certainly some of this could be explained by the prevailing ocean conditions.
Having said that I know from expierence that the power and transportation people will simply sieze upon this little spike in the numbers to lobby for the continuation of bussiness as usual.
Some of the Bios have been predicting a rool over in the Gulf of Alaska from fin fish to shell fish favorable enviromental conditions. The bad news fewer salmon for a few cycles, the good news cheaper king crab and shrimp. One of the Bios who made this speculation was at the time in charge of the International Halibut Commission Dr. Hoag.

Snagly...True the Bristol Bay Run has had some
ups and downs.As for the SC Kenai...we are enjoying another good season of Fishing.Just got back from the Russian.Spanked 'em like a unwanted stepchild.This next two weeks the Silvers(and Humps) should start to show.As for the Kings we had a slow start..but the run warmed up.
"Fish Hard,Die Free"..Alaska..OUT
P.S. Went to Singapore for R&R..During my "Asian Vacation"(Vietnam Tour)...*****en place to visit.

Things are hardly normal here ... C&R regs on the Kenai for the first run of fish, poor Kenai sockeye run has closed commercial fishing for the moment and will likely have impact on the sport fishery very soon too, Kasilof native kings (although very good the past few days) have been very poor this month, silver limits in all Peninsula rivers (other than enhanced fisheries) have been reduced to two this year due to low runs. I could go on and on ... remind me and I'll try to post more on this at the end of the week when my crazy shifts are over ...