Tag Archives: Chumageddon

A rare summer-long chinook opener was not enough to lure SE trollers away from Chumageddon

Chinook trollers in Southeast may have left a sizeable portion of their allocation in the water when the summer season wrapped up on September 20 – but that doesn’t mean it was a bad year. Instead, it was a rather unusual year. “Being able to retain chinook for the entire summer is not something that they’re used to,” said Grant Hagerman, troll management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish & Game in Sitka. Commercial trolling for king salmon was open all summer, with only three days off to allow silver salmon – or coho – time to escape into their natal streams, lakes, and rivers. Hagerman says the long summer season wasn’t due to a lack of king salmon; rather, it was an abundance of choice. Commercial trolling has changed. >click to read/listen< 12:37