Sockeye Salmon, courtesy of ADF&G

The sockeye salmon run at Cape Wislow has hit 10,000 fish, meaning the whole creek is open again for subsistence fishing.

The run met the Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s minimum goal yesterday, with a total of 10,005 fish.

That milestone comes later this year than in 2013. Assistant area management biologist Nat Nichols says the number of salmon passing through their fish weir at McLees Lake is just now picking up speed.

"It sounds like people have been out there fishing and doing reasonably well," Nichols says. "It’s not a banner year, but it’s not terrible."

The ADF&G had closed 500 yards of the creek to fishing on July 1st. It’s a scheduled closure, designed to help the run hit its goal if it hasn’t already.

The closure can last up to a week, but Nichols says this year, it didn’t have to.

"This year we got to 10,000 a few days early, so we’re pulling the markers down to allow for additional opportunity, if people want to go out there and go subsistence fishing," Nichols says.

In the past, the ADF&G has seen as many as 100,000 fish in total on the run through McLees Lake. Nichols doesn’t expect this year’s run to go that high, but he says there’s no telling what the upper limit will be.

Unalaskans usually get plenty of salmon from Cape Wislow -- last year, the run accounted for 68 percent of the area’s subsistence harvest. That’s low, compared to 92 percent in 2012. Nichols says it’s because last year, more people caught their fish in places like Front Beach.

He says Unalaskans caught about the same amount of salmon in total both years -- between 4 and 5,000 fish.