Low Water Makes Fishing Difficult

Observation by Sara Germain:

SUPER low water in Nome! Made it hard for boating to the red salmon fishing honey hole this year. Fishing was pretty poor, folks struggled to get their limit of 25 red salmon per household this year. Endless pink salmon though. And silvers seem to be running OK so far.

Rick Thoman, Climate Scientist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy writes:

Low rain for sure: it was the driest July-August at Nome since 2002 and the second driest in the past 40 years. Early snowmelt (and unlike the previous couple of springs, not an excessive snowpack on the Seward Peninsula) started the rivers off low, and then the lack of rain kept them that way. Nome lucked out and the biggest rain of the summer came in late June, just in time to raise river levels and cool off the water just as salmon were returning.

Comments from LEO Editors:

This summer, two other LEO members have commented on how low water has affected fishing and fish health. In Elim, commercial fishing has been very poor with very few fish. In July-August, the Tubutulik River measured 2 feet deep at the deepest transect. Low water may have also contributed to stress that caused eggs to die in a coho salmon caught near Quinhagak.