August 11, 2025 — A trio of anglers leaned on the edge of Jordan Carter’s boat in shallow water on the Kenai River last month, victoriously enjoying a cold beverage.
Their ride with Carter, a local fishing guide, was brief but bountiful. The group pulled in 18 sockeye salmon in a flash, easily reaching their limit with time left to enjoy the sunny day.
“He was 30 minutes, I was 45, and he was like 46,” Bryan Fanning said, pointing at fishing partners as he recounted the timelines for reaching their respective limits. “Coming up here and doing the sockeye, it’s great.”
It’s a different river from what Fanning recalls from his youth. The king salmon run that for so long was the centerpiece of the Kenai River has virtually dried up, with the fishery closed for a third straight summer.
Fanning remembers the family fishing excursions in the 1990s that could take more than a day to reel in a single king. Now living in Wyoming, his annual fishing trips north have become more eventful with the bustling sockeye fishery providing a reasonable alternative.
This summer’s late-run sockeye have been an absolute rocket ship, with multiple days of fish counts reaching over 240,000 in late July. By Thursday, the late-run sockeye count had passed 3.7 million, setting a new record amid a string of strong seasons.
The booming sockeye runs of recent years couldn’t have come at a better time, providing a lifeline for the fishing trade that has been the main economic driver on the Kenai Peninsula for decades.
The shift from kings has also shortened the fishing window — and with it, the associated tourism season — and brought a different demographic group to the region.