Low Flow Means King Salmon Are Returning Late to Mat-Su

By Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Jun. 17–If you’re one of those Southcentral Alaska anglers wondering if the 2007 salmon season got off to a slow start, rest assured it’s not just in your head.

Or at least, not all of it.

“It always seems late,” said Dave Rutz, Susitna Valley sportfish biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. “It’s about the same as last year.”

But then, of course, he conceded that many considered last year late too.

By comparison to 2006, in fact, the Deshka River — the biggest king salmon producer in Mat-Su — was actually looking a little better this year. By the end of the first week in June last year, Fish and Game had only counted about 450 of the big fish through its weir. This year, by the same date, there were slightly more than 600.

So a newcomer to the Deshka last year might think things are looking pretty good this year, while someone with years of experience in this fishery might see it quite differently given that 2006 was something of an anomaly.

By the end of the first week of June 2005, there were about 2,000 kings past the weir. And in 2004, the number was closer to 4,500.

OK, Rutz said, so the run might be a wee bit late, but that might have as much to do with early-season fishing conditions as the number of fish returning.

“The water levels haven’t been lower than this in 30 years,” he said. “You’re not seeing a lot of boats running up to the weir.”

The reason is simple. There isn’t enough water for them to make the run. Even jet boats, needing only a few inches on which to navigate, have been banging their bottoms short of the weir, seven miles upstream.

Low water may be equally discouraging for fish. Rutz thinks a fair number that would have made the run upstream by now could be hanging in the Susitna River off the mouth of the Deshka waiting for water levels to rise.

If they rise.

“The Alaska Range and the Talkeetna (Mountains) got less snow than in 30 years,” Rutz said. “The river’s pretty low. It’s mirroring last year.”

Rain would help.

Anchorage biologist Dan Bosch said that is what changed things at Ship Creek. Some rain fell in the first week of June; the creek started to rise; and the fish started coming in.

“Ship Creek started to pick up a bit,” he said. “It seems like everything was running a little late.

“I think what was happening at the beginning was both colder temps and low flow.”

Water temperatures in Ship Creek actually dropped a bit when the rain came, Bosch said, but the fish started moving anyway. Flow, it would seem, might be a little more important than temperature, but then who really can predict how these things will turn out.

On the Kenai Peninsula to the south, the Anchor River was supposed to get a pretty marginal return of kings this year. There was a big flood in 2002, the main parent year for the 2007 fish. Stream banks were washed out. Gravel in which eggs were buried got moved around.

Everyone feared the worst.

It didn’t happen.

As of the end of the first week of June, Fish and Game had counted about 5,000 kings through the Anchor weir. That was a couple thousand fish more than for the same day last year, right in line with 2005, just below a banner year in 2003.

“It is really interesting,” assistant area sportfisheries biologist Carol Kerkvliet said. “All of us are looking at it. The jury’s still out (on what happened).”

It could be that the flood didn’t do as much damage as everyone thought. It could be that the flood did a lot of damage, but that excellent survival in the ocean environment changed the results. Or it could be that the missing fish from 2002 were replaced by an unusually large number of early returners spawned in 2003.

Scale sampling should eventually pin down the latter one way or the another.

As for ocean survival, biologists agree that’s one thing scientists know precious little about.

“Freshwater survival is only one piece of the puzzle,” Kerkvliet said.

“The early marine survival is vital,” Bosch said. “That’s where it all happens.”

“You kind of have to throw your hands up in the air (and hope),” Rutz said.

Fisheries managers, in reality, have control over only a tiny piece of the picture. They can ensure an adequate number of salmon make it to their spawning beds to, at least theoretically, seed the system to provide strong future runs.

If they get lucky, it all works out as well or better than planned, as on the case on the Anchor this year.

“It’s looking really nice,” Kerkvliet said. “It makes everybody happy.”

And all indications are things are just going to get better from here on.

After a May that was colder than normal and a June that started out the same way, things are finally warming up. The fish seem to be coming.

On the Copper River, where salmon were slowed by an ice dam in May, they have been pouring in by the tens of thousands per day.

On the Kenai River, a return of early-run kings that started out a little behind the curve is now on track with previous years.

And with the weather warming, even if the fish don’t show in huge numbers, the fishing seems better because it feels like fishing season.

“It really has been on the cooler side,” Kerkvliet said as the first week of June rolled toward an end in Homer. “The trees aren’t even fully budded out.”

Summer, though, was even then coming fast.

Rutz, reached on his cell phone at the Deshka weir, was already enjoying it. He was just far enough toward the Interior from Homer to get away from marine influence that holds coastal temperatures down and into the continental influence that boosts them.

“It feels nice and warm,” he said.

It is, Rutz said, clearly time to go fishing.

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Find outdoors editor Craig Medred online at adn.com/contact/cmedred.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

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