Bristol Bay eastside salmon announcement No. 1

Read it right here.

The new salmon season comes in sight!

The famed Copper River salmon fishery will open at 7 a.m. May 22 for a 12-hour period, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced today.

The commercial harvest forecast for this year is 728,000 sockeye, which is on par with the 10-year average of 733,000, the department said.

Sockeye and king salmon from the Copper River are a highly anticipated culinary treat each year, with the start of the fishery serving as the kickoff to a new Alaska salmon season.

It's halibut time again

Another long North Pacific halibut season opens at 6 a.m. local time tomorrow. The season is scheduled to run until Dec. 7.

This is a tough time for the halibut fishery as stocks of the big, flat fish are low.

This year's coastwide catch limit is 29.33 million pounds. Five years ago, in 2022, the limit was 41.2 million pounds.

For those who would like to delve much deeper into the numbers, click here.

We wish all halibut fishermen a fine season. Please be safe!