What You'll Catch in Southeast Alaska: A Guide to Keepers and Release-Only Fish

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Ketchikan didn't earn the nickname "Salmon Capital of the World" by accident. The waters off Prince of Wales Island and the Inside Passage hold one of the richest saltwater fisheries on the planet, and a week aboard one of Sportsman's Cove Lodge's boats can put you in front of a dozen different species in a single day. But not everything that bends your rod goes in the cooler.

Alaska's fish and game managers have built a system of seasons, size limits, and release rules designed to keep these fisheries healthy for the next hundred years of anglers and knowing the difference between a keeper and a "photo and release" fish makes the day on the water even better.

Here's what you can expect to catch, what you get to bring home, and what goes back over the rail.

The Keepers

King Salmon (Chinook)

The king is the fish most anglers dream about before they ever set foot on a boat, and Southeast Alaska's kings run from June through August. At Sportsman's Cove, that generally means a daily limit of one fish, 28 inches or longer, with an annual limit that's set each year by emergency order under the Southeast Alaska King Salmon

Management Plan. Anything under 28 inches has to go back, and if you're fishing on a charter, the crew is prohibited from keeping a king while you're aboard, it's your fish or nobody's.

Silver Salmon (Coho)

Cohos show up August through September, and they're some of the hardest fighting fish in the Inside Passage, chrome-bright, aggressive, and built for acrobatics on light tackle. The general Southeast bag limit is 6 fish per day, 12 in possession, with no annual cap, which is why the lodge advertises the same daily-six on silvers.

Pink and Chum Salmon

Pinks flood the system in July and August in staggering numbers during even-numbered "pink years," and chum aren't far behind. Both fall under the same general 6-per-day, 12-in-possession structure as coho, so a big pink year can mean a very full smoker.

Pacific Halibut

Halibut season runs June through September, and the fish is managed jointly by the state and the International Pacific Halibut Commission under treaty rules that change from year to year. The current framework anglers fish is a daily limit of one halibut, either under 37 inches or 80 inches and greater a "slot limit" designed to protect the most productive breeding-size fish in the middle of the range.

Halibut fishing is closed on Tuesdays in the local charter fleet. Anglers who want a shot at a second, bigger fish or a Tuesday trip can add a Guided Angler Fish permit for a fee.

Lingcod

Lingcod season runs May 16 through November 30, and the regulations get specific: one fish per day with a size structure of 30–35 inches, or 55 inches and longer.

Fish in the 35–55 inch window have to be released, since that's prime spawning-age territory for the species. Charter crew also can't retain a lingcod while clients are still fishing aboard.

Pacific Cod

Cod are a reliable bonus fish while bottom jigging for halibut, and in most of Southeast Alaska there's no bag or size limit on Pacific cod a nice, no-pressure fish to bring home for the fryer.

Pelagic Rockfish

Not all rockfish are treated the same, but the six "pelagic" species, black, blue, dark, dusky, widow, and yellowtail rockfish are managed much more liberally. These fish school higher in the water column and tend to be less vulnerable to overfishing, so anglers typically get 5 fish per day, no annual or size limit.

Dungeness and Tanner Crab

If your trip includes a pot pull, Dungeness crab is a Southeast Alaska classic. Only males 6½ inches or larger (shoulder width) may be kept. Every female, and every undersized male, goes back in the water unharmed. Tanner crab have a similar structure with a 5½-inch minimum on males. Limits and open areas shift by location, so your captain will know the current numbers for wherever you're crabbing.

The Ones That Go Back

Yelloweye and Other Demersal Shelf Rockfish

This is the fish every Southeast angler needs to understand before they drop a jig near a rock pile. Yelloweye rockfish, along with quillback, tiger, China, canary, copper, and rosethorn rockfish, are collectively called "demersal shelf rockfish," and are long-lived and slow to reproduce. Yelloweye don't reach maturity until their late teens or early twenties. One fish sampled in Southeast Alaska was aged at 121 years old! Because of that, harvest is tightly capped often just one fish per day with a one-fish annual limit and once you've hooked a non-pelagic rockfish, Alaska regulation requires that it be retained toward your limit rather than released, since deep-water rockfish suffer high mortality from barotrauma (a pressure-related injury caused by rapid reeling from deep water) when reeled up from depth and simply tossed back at the surface.

That's exactly why every boat fishing Southeast Alaska salt water is required to carry a deepwater release device a weighted clip or box that carries an unwanted rockfish back down to the depth it was caught or at least 100 feet so it can re-pressurize and swim off rather than float on the surface. Research on these devices has shown yelloweye released this way can have survival rates as high as 98%, which is a big part of why the species can support any harvest at all in a fishery this popular.

Steelhead Trout

Southeast Alaska's wild steelhead runs are famously small. Some streams see returns numbering only in the hundreds of fish, so the fishery leans hard toward catch-and-release. Regulations use an intentionally large minimum size limit so that most steelhead hooked in Southeast Alaska are released rather than kept, and anglers are encouraged to handle every fish gently, keep it in the water as much as possible, and revive it fully before letting go.

Sleeper Sharks

Southeast Alaska waters occasionally give up a shark, and the Pacific sleeper shark is the one you'll want to let swim away regardless of the regulations. Sleeper sharks are generally considered inedible and are a strange looking, slow moving giant that's more curiosity than table fare. Salmon sharks and spiny dogfish, by contrast, are both legal to keep (salmon shark meat needs to be bled and gutted immediately due to high urea content), but the sleeper is a release only encounter for most anglers.

Undersized and Out-of-Slot Fish

Across nearly every species above, the same principle applies: fish outside the legal slot get released. That includes king salmon under 28 inches, lingcod between 35 and 55 inches, oversized or undersized halibut outside the daily slot, and any female or undersized Dungeness crab. Handling these fish well with wet hands, minimal air exposure, a quick release matters just as much as the regulation itself.

Why It All Works

Southeast Alaska's fishery rules can look complicated on paper, but they add up to something simple: species that reproduce quickly and can handle pressure such as pink and chum salmon, pelagic rockfish, Pacific cod get generous limits, while species that grow slowly and reproduce late in life like king salmon, halibut, yelloweye rockfish, and wild steelhead get tighter protection. It's a system built by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game specifically so that the extraordinary fishing you'll experience at Sportsman's Cove Lodge is still there for the next generation of anglers stepping off the dock in Ketchikan.

Regulations shift from year to year, especially king salmon and rockfish limits, which are frequently updated by emergency order. Always confirm current numbers with your guide or the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Southeast sport fishing regulations page before your trip. Your captain and crew at Sportsman's Cove will always have the up-to-date rules in hand, so all you need to worry about is getting out there and having fun on the water!