Alaska Administrative Code
Title 5 - Fish and Game
Part 1 - Commercial and Subsistence Fishing and Private Nonprofit Salmon Hatcheries
Chapter 06 - Bristol Bay Area
Article 3 - Salmon Fishery
5 AAC 06.368 - Nushagak River Coho Salmon Management Plan

(a) The purpose of this management plan is to provide guidelines to ensure an adequate spawning escapement of coho salmon into the Nushagak River system. It is the intent of the Board of Fisheries (board) that Nushagak coho salmon be harvested by the fisheries that have historically harvested them. The plan in this section provides management guidelines to the department in an effort to preclude allocation conflicts between various users of this resource. The department shall manage coho salmon stocks in a conservative manner consistent with sustained yield principles and the subsistence priority.

(b) The department shall manage the commercial fishery in the Nushagak District to achieve an inriver run goal of 70,000 - 130,000 coho salmon present in the Nushagak River upstream from the department sonar counter located near the village of Portage Creek by August 25. The inriver goal provides for

(c) If the total inriver coho salmon return in the Nushagak River is projected by the department to be less than 120,000 but at least 70,000 fish by August 25, the commissioner shall close, by emergency order, the directed coho salmon commercial fishery in the Nushagak District by August 1; and

(d) If the total inriver coho salmon return in the Nushagak River is projected by the department to be less than 70,000 fish and the number of spawners is projected to be more than 60,000 fish on August 25, the commissioner shall

(e) If the number of coho salmon spawners in the Nushagak River is projected by the department to be less than 60,000 fish by August 25, the department shall close the subsistence, commercial, and sport fisheries.