Guides
The Alaska salmon season, explained
How the numbers on this site work: how to read the Blue Sheet, what ex-vessel price and escapement mean, the five species and their markets, the statistical week, and how ADF&G forecasts runs. Each guide is built on the same live scoreboard as the rest of the site, so the examples are real and current.
Reading the season
ADF&G Blue Sheet: how to read Alaska's salmon harvest
The ADF&G Blue Sheet is the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's running count of the commercial salmon harvest, posted through the season in thousands of fish by region, area, district and species. It covers common-property and hatchery cost-recovery catch only, it leaves out sport, subsistence and personal-use fish, and every figure is preliminary and subject to revision.
What is a statistical week?
A statistical week is the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's reporting week, running Sunday through Saturday and numbered from the start of the year. The salmon season covers roughly statistical week 20 in mid-May through week 40 in early October, and run-timing comparisons anchor to the stat week rather than the calendar date.
Alaska salmon season dates by fishery
Alaska's commercial salmon season runs from the Copper River opener in mid-May to the coho fishing of fall, and Bristol Bay's sockeye peak in late June and early July is the stretch that fills the scoreboard fastest. It is a relay of fisheries handing off down the calendar, each region taking its turn as its run arrives.
When is Copper River salmon season, and how does it work?
Copper River salmon season opens in the second half of May, with the first period on May 22 in both 2025 and 2026, and runs into September, when coho finish it. ADF&G opens each fishing period by announcement, based on the count at its Miles Lake sonar, so there is no fixed calendar of fishing days.
Management and markets
What is ex-vessel price?
Ex-vessel price is the price a fisherman is paid for salmon at the boat, in the first sale before any processing. It sits below the wholesale price a processor charges and well below the retail price, and ADF&G publishes it on a lag because the final figure includes post-season adjustments and bonuses that settle the following year.
How ADF&G forecasts salmon runs
ADF&G builds its preseason salmon forecasts from the return records of past runs, using sibling models that relate this year's return to how earlier age classes came back and spawner-return relationships that tie a run to past spawning. The forecast is the preseason benchmark, the harvest is what actually lands, and the percent of forecast is the pace against it.
Escapement in plain English
Escapement is the count of salmon that get past the fishery and up the river to spawn, and escapement goals are the spawning numbers a run needs to sustain itself. Managers open and close fishing in season by emergency order to hit those goals first, which is why in-season harvest can swing hard even in a strong run.
Limited-entry permits and what they cost
Alaska caps the number of permits in each commercial salmon fishery under a system called limited entry, and the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission keeps the public record of who holds them and what they sell for. A permit's resale value is the market's long-run read on confidence in the fishery, and the CFEC keeps the current numbers.
Tenders, processors and the price chain
A tender is a vessel that buys salmon from the fishing fleet out on the grounds and hauls it to the processor, the middle link in how a fisherman gets paid. What a permit holder finally earns is a base price at delivery plus post-season adjustments and bonuses that settle later, and together those make up the ex-vessel price.
Yukon River king salmon returns and how they are counted
Yukon River Chinook returns are counted by sonar, not by catch: Pilot Station estimates the run entering the lower river and Eagle counts what reaches the Canadian border. Those in-season passage numbers, not the commercial harvest, are what fishing decisions on the Yukon wait on.
Bristol Bay commercial fishing announcements, explained
Bristol Bay commercial fishing announcements are ADF&G emergency orders that open and close each district for set hours, waters and gear, issued from King Salmon for the east side and Dillingham for the west. Managers use them to steer each river toward its escapement goal.
How much do you make salmon fishing in Alaska?
There is no single figure: a permit's season gross is the pounds it lands times the ex-vessel price. In four of Alaska's largest salmon fisheries, CFEC's preliminary 2025 averages ran from about $77,000 to about $249,000 per permit, before crew shares, fuel and other costs.
Port Moller test fishery: Bristol Bay's early read on the sockeye run
The Port Moller test fishery is a research gillnet fishery that samples Bristol Bay sockeye at sea, about a week before they reach the fishing districts. Its daily catch index is a catch rate, not a forecast; read with ADF&G's genetic estimates, it shows how strongly the run is arriving and which rivers it is bound for.
Species and value
Sockeye vs pink salmon: the five species and their markets
Sockeye is Alaska's high-value salmon and pink its high-volume one. In 2025 an average sockeye was worth about $5.98 at the dock and an average pink about $0.96, so pinks made up 61% of the fish landed but sockeye earned 58% of the ex-vessel value.
What does wild caught salmon mean in Alaska?
Wild caught salmon is salmon that grew up in open water and was caught there, not raised to market size in a pen. Every salmon in Alaska's commercial harvest qualifies, because Alaska bans finfish farming, and hatchery-born fish count as wild under the federal label.