By Lisa Demer

BETHEL — Almost no one is catching fish on the Kuskokwim River so far this summer. Government managers have shut down much of the river to gillnets — the most effective gear. It could be the worst king salmon run on record, a state biologist said Wednesday.

Residents who have long depended on chinook, or king, salmon to fill drying racks and smokehouses are worried about their food for next winter. They wonder if targeting of other salmon species and other types of fish will deplete those fish over time.

Yet on the Yukon River to the north, chinook are running in bigger-than-expected numbers. Experts aren't sure why there's such a difference.

Heartbreak over the Kuskokwim's so-far phantom king run clouded a fish meeting Wednesday that included Fish and Game Commissioner Sam Cotten. Men from villages where residents are out of salmon broke down, frustrated and unable to speak through tears.

All over Alaska, king salmon runs have crashed in recent years, but nowhere is the pain felt more dearly than on the Kuskokwim, where residents used to fish for subsistence without restriction.

Managers are resisting pressure to allow more fishing. Chinook need to pass by villages to spawn. Only that will ensure future years of fishing, biologists say.

Limits on early season fishing have become routine since 2014, but this year the number of chinook is especially low and the restrictions especially severe.

There's been just one 12-hour opener with driftnets on the most populated part of the river, including Bethel and surrounding villages. Hundreds of boats fished, but only about 5,500 salmon were caught, including about 2,300 kings, according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service harvest report. That's a dramatically low number for a river system that serves thousands of people.

People are sharing the few fish they get, including what comes in through state test fisheries in Bethel and Aniak, in which crews fish the same spots daily to gauge the timing and size of salmon runs. Bethel's tribe, Orutsararmiut Native Council, is distributing those fish to elders eager for a taste of fresh fish. In Aniak it is placed in a free fish bin, as usually happens later in the summer in Bethel.

‘How desperate we are’

Cotten's presence drew a crowd to the weekly salmon meeting, where normally a small but committed group of volunteers reviews data and advises state managers on when to allow fishing.

Many on Wednesday called in or lined up to underscore similar themes.

People of the Kuskokwim live to fish, for fish, and on fish, they said over and over. They questioned whether Bering Sea pollock fisheries still are damaging Kuskokwim runs, despite yearslong limits on how many chinook they can incidentally catch. They wondered if the king salmon are simply late arriving.

Maybe, suggested Sandra Nicori of Kwethluk, a village near Bethel, there should be a moratorium on grocery stores.

"Then they'd see how desperate we are," she said.

An elder called in from Crooked Creek farther north to say, "We are hungry up here."

Barb Carlson, who lives near upriver Sleetmute and is a longtime volunteer on the salmon working group, said the hope is that now-empty smokehouses and drying racks will fill with red and chum salmon as those runs build.

But something needs to change. Village residents didn't make the problem, she said.

"We're not catching more fish than usual. We haven't decimated our spawning grounds. But something is happening that's keeping our fish from returning once they get out to the Bering Sea," Carlson said. "We can't just keep giving and giving and giving."

What can the working group do, she asked Cotten.

Maybe the worst on record

Research suggests ocean conditions play a role, but the results aren't very specific, Cotten said.

Before this year, the worst chinook run for the Kuskokwim was in 2013. Those fish make up one of the parent years for this year's run, along with those from 2011 and 2012 — another terrible year, said Zach Liller, state research biologist for the Kuskokwim.

So far, 2017 is tracking along 2012 and 2013 — and could end with even fewer kings reaching the Kuskokwim, he said.

For the first time, a sonar fish-counting system is in place on the Kuskokwim, near Bethel.

Don't the sonar numbers project a dismal run, maybe just 41,000 or so kings, pressed Lisa Feyereisen, a working group member from Crow Village.

It's still early and there is a lot of uncertainty, but that assessment is accurate, Liller said.

Without a late surge, Liller said, 2017 will go down as "one of the worst runs of king salmon on record. It would be the worst."

Between 65,000 and 120,000 chinook need to make it to spawning grounds, figures known as the state "escapement" goal. Fish caught are in addition to those.

The region's needs and concerns are real, Cotten said. But his job is primarily to "protect the fish, to make sure we meet escapement, that we don't overfish."

Bright spot on Yukon

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. sent Vice President Tiffany Zulkosky to the meeting to emphasize the mental and physical health issues related to salmon. She asked for more study of ocean fish habitats.

Already a new study is planned to start next year in the southern Bering Sea, Liller said. It will examine young Kuskokwim and Bristol Bay chinook salmon, stocks that continue to struggle, Katie Howard, a state fishery scientist, said later. In the northern Bering Sea, another study found good survival of young Yukon fish — the same fish returning in better-than-expected numbers this year, she said.

Maybe the new research will point to differences in those ocean habitats, she said.

Federal managers have taken control on a large stretch of the Kuskokwim from the village of Aniak to the river mouth. State managers have put in place limits in other parts of the river as well, though in the sparsely populated upper reaches, fishing with gillnets is allowed.

Residents of villages up and down the Kuskokwim River along with the hub of Bethel are complying with the restrictions, but enforcement officers say pressure for fish is building, said Ken Stahlnecker, manager of the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

"Over the last day or two they have been sensing more resistance, more interest in getting out," Stahlnecker said. He is overseeing federal management, which started June 12 to ensure that locals who rely on the fish for subsistence will get priority.

"Luckily their elders are keeping everybody on track — so far," said Fritz Charles, a co-manager of the Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group. "But once the elders say to go, they go, regulation or not. They go."

In some villages, thieves are swiping the few fish drying on racks, Cotten was told.

Journey to fish

Some Bethel residents have traveled 100 miles by boat to fish in the Quinhagak area of Kuskokwim Bay, where runs of chinook, sockeye and chum salmon all appear healthy and fishing is allowed around the clock, according to state managers. Those fish spawn in the Kanektok and Arolik rivers — not the Kuskokwim. In the bay, there are no restrictions on subsistence and fishermen can use big, highly effective nets, said Chuck Brazil, the state's regional fish management coordinator.

Another group, the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission, advises the federal managers. It plans to review the latest fish count numbers on Friday to see whether fishing should open up.

As the meeting neared its end, Cotten and some state fish managers left to fly to Aniak. He wanted to speak with residents there, and examine fish projects.