Here is the salmon fishing harvest summary provided by the Kuskokwim InterTribal Fish Commission (KRITFC) from the July 19th fishing opportunity, released on July21st, 2025 in their In-season Update, and also the salmon bycatch and intercept report as of July 17th, 2025.
IN-SEASON SUBSISTENCE HARVEST UPDATES
During lower Kuskokwim subsistence fishing opportunities, KRITFC works with the Orutsararmiut Traditional Native Council and Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge to gather on-the-ground harvest interviews and fishing effort data in the lower Kuskokwim. This helps us produce in-season harvest estimates to inform fisheries managers.
On July 19, 2025, there were an estimated:
16 drift net trips
7 set net trips
585 salmon harvested
21 Chinook salmon harvested
292 chum salmon harvested
182 sockeye salmon harvested
91 coho salmon harvested
Find a recap of the earlier fishing opportunities’ harvest estimates on our 2025 Fishing Info page.
Please note: These harvest estimates range only from fishing trips between Tuntutuliak to Tuluksak during federally announced openers. Since salmon are also harvested in non-spawning tributaries, with alternative gear, downriver from Tuntutuliak, and upriver from Tuluksak, we consider them a minimum estimate of fish harvested this season.
SALMON BYCATCH & INTERCEPT REPORT
BERING SEA BYCATCH: As of July 17, 2025, commercial fisheries in the Bering Sea have caught 16,456 Chinook salmon and 8,251 chum salmon as bycatch. These are total numbers of salmon bycatch and not Kuskokwim-specific salmon. On average, 40-50% of all Chinook salmon and 12-20% of all chum salmon bycatch in Bering Sea pollock trawl fisheries are of Western and Interior Alaska origin.
These federal fisheries are managed by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) and NOAA Fisheries, and they include pollock trawl fisheries.
This year, the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute (BBSRI) is again collecting in-season genetic samples from chum salmon bycatch from the B-season inshore pollock trawl fishery. Whereas most genetic analyses take a year or more to produce, this initiative produces in-season genetic analyses of the bulk of the Bering Sea chum salmon bycatch, providing information for the pollock industry to avoid Western and Interior Alaska chum salmon. BBSRI’s data are reported at https://www.bbsri.org/inseason-data.
Last Friday, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council noticed the public that the meeting for Final Action on Chum Salmon Bycatch Management will take place from February 2-11, 2026 in Anchorage. Stay tuned for more information about how to engage in this meeting and action. To learn more about the issue, read our blog posts leading up to and following the February 2025 meeting, or contact Terese Vicente, KRITFC Policy & Programs Director, at 907-545-5022 or [email protected].
AREA M INTERCEPT: At the end of June 2025, South Alaska Peninsula (Area M) fisheries reported catching 165,028 chum salmon and 2,249 Chinook salmon. The month of June is predominantly when Western and Interior Alaska chum salmon are migrating through this fishery. Anywhere from 18-57% of the chum salmon, and an unknown number of Chinook salmon, caught in the June fishery are of Western and Interior Alaska origin. This year had reportedly one of the poorest harvests in recent memory.
As of July 18, 2025, 588,694 chum salmon and 4,104 Chinook salmon have reportedly been caught. Click here for the latest fishery harvest information.
This state fishery is managed by the Alaska Board of Fisheries and Alaska Department of Fish & Game.