Salmon and Halibut: Kachemak Bay's Short Season

King salmon show first, in May, and halibut are legal year round in the bay. The season is not one season but three overlapping ones: a spring king and halibut window, a summer pink and sockeye window, and a fall silver window that closes when the light goes. Alaska Department of Fish and Game sets the openings, the National Weather Service sets the working hours in practice, and the tide book decides the rest. Landscape photography in France faces the same problem on a different coast: a single frame of a working harbor shows the boats and the light but not the calendar that put them there, which is the subject French landscape photography keeps returning to.

Which fish run in Kachemak Bay, and in which weeks?

Chinook, or king, salmon are the first to matter. The early run enters the bay in May, and the Homer Spit and the Nick Dudiak Fishing Lagoon draw anglers from the second week of May. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game publishes emergency orders each spring that can close or extend those openings on a few days' notice, so the dates are a framework, not a promise.

Sockeye salmon follow in June and July, moving through the bay toward the rivers at the head of Kachemak Bay and toward the Russian River system on the other side of the peninsula. Pink salmon arrive in July and run hard through August on even years, lighter on odd years. Chum salmon overlap the pinks and hold later into September. Coho, or silver, salmon are the last, entering in late August and staying into September, and they are the fish that keeps the fall charter fleet on the water.

Halibut are different. Pacific halibut are present in the bay all year, and the guided sport fishery is managed by an annual bag limit and size restrictions set by the International Pacific Halibut Commission and adopted by the state. The charter season in Homer runs roughly from May through September because that is when boats and clients are there, not because the fish leave.

How the light changes across the short season

In May the sun is already up before six and does not set until after ten. The light at that hour is low and long, coming across the bay from the northwest, and it hits the pilings under the boardwalk at Halibut Cove at a shallow angle. Photographers working the bay call this the flat light window, because the water is still cold and the air is often clear.

By late June the light is at its longest. There is no true darkness at this latitude, only a long blue dusk that never quite finishes. That is the month when a photograph taken at eleven at night can look like one taken at eight.

August brings the first rain and the first real cloud. The light softens and flattens, and the bay turns from blue to grey. September is the month of contrast: low sun, sharp shadows on the water, and the first snow on the mountains behind Homer. By the end of September the light is gone by eight, and the water taxis are running fewer trips.

What does a photograph of the bay leave out?

The photograph leaves out the cold. A picture of a skiff crossing to Halibut Cove in July shows flat water and a green hillside; it does not show the forty degree air on the water at six in the morning, or the wind that comes down off the mountains without warning. It leaves out the sound, which is mostly the outboard and the gulls.

It also leaves out the regulation. A photograph of a halibut on a deck does not show the size limit that decided whether it could be kept, or the annual bag limit that closed the season for that boat. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game publishes those numbers every year, and they change. A picture of a full fish box is a picture of a decision made earlier, on shore, with a regulation book open.

And it leaves out the season itself. A single frame cannot show that the same water holds king salmon in May, pinks in August, and coho in September, or that the boat in the frame will be pulled out of the water in October. The bay is the same. What the frame holds is the light. What it leaves out is the clock.

What runs when, in one table

The order is stable even when the dates move. King salmon, May and early June. Sockeye, June and July. Pink, July and August, heavy on even years. Chum, August into September. Coho, late August into September. Halibut, all year, with the guided fishery concentrated from May to September.

How regulation frames the season

Alaska Department of Fish and Game divides the state into management areas, and Kachemak Bay sits inside the Lower Cook Inlet area. The department issues an annual sport fishing regulation summary, and it issues emergency orders during the season when a run comes in weak or strong. Those orders can close a river, shorten a limit, or add a day.

The halibut side is set differently. The International Pacific Halibut Commission meets each winter and sets catch limits and size rules for the coming year, and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and the state adopt them into sport regulations. A charter boat captain in Homer works from two rulebooks, not one.

Why the season is short

The season is short because the light is short and the fish are not there in the same numbers all year. The bay is ice free in winter, and a few boats fish halibut in January, but the fleet is small and the days are dark. The charter season runs from May to September because that is when the road to the Homer Spit is open, the water taxis run, and the clients come.

The National Weather Service marine forecast for Kachemak Bay is the practical clock. A small craft advisory will keep a skiff at the dock regardless of what the regulation book says, and the forecast is what a captain reads first in the morning.

What a photograph can and cannot show

A photograph can show the light on the water, the color of the hillside, the shape of a boat, and the way the pilings at Halibut Cove stand in the tide. It can show a net, a rod, a fish on a deck. It cannot show the tide table that set the hour, the emergency order that set the limit, or the fact that the same frame in February would be dark at four in the afternoon.

That is the honest limit of the picture. The bay is a place where the season is written in regulation and in light, and a photograph holds only one of those at a time.