Months before the start of the season, the state closes chinook salmon sport fisheries and gill net fisheries

Parts of the Kenai River are still frozen. But the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has already closed early and late king salmon runs to sport fishing — and also closed the beleaguered Set Net fishery on Cook Inlet on the east side before fishermen can gear up.

“This is my 53rd year as a Set-Netter and I’ve never experienced anything like it,” said Ken Coleman, vice president of the Kenai Peninsula Fishermen’s Association.

He said he had never seen the fishery close so early. Fish and Game publishes a pre-season forecast for the early Chinook Salmon Run each winter to give guides and fishermen a sense of what to expect before the start of summer.

This year, the department is forecasting just 2,900 kings in the early run and 13,630 in the late run — which is below the target range of 15,000 to 30,000 fish set by the Board of Fish. In two emergency orders released last night, the Department for Fish and Game said it would halt all sport fishing for king salmon in the river. Another emergency order closes Deep Creek and the Anchor River to sport fishing.

Change has been hard on the guides, who have long relied on taking clients on chinook salmon trips. As numbers have continued to decline and closures have become more frequent they have focused on fishing for sockeye, halibut and trout.

But for Setscher, whose fishery also closes when the king sport fishery closes, there is no plan B.

Coleman said his phone had been ringing all day since the orders came out.

“They asked is there a way to change something? Is there anything we can do as nets like fish less or fish shallower nets?” he said.

Both out-of-cycle legal action and proposals to the Board of Fish failed last year.

Coleman said the best they can hope for is that the department will take another assessment in the middle of the summer and get to a point where it’s able to reconsider opening up the fishery, at least in part. But he said that was unlikely.