Dipnet Fishing: Uniquely Alaskan

I can’t think of many things more Alaskan than dipnetting. Also known as personal use fishing, it’s something only Alaska residents are allowed to do. It’s a yearly opportunity for subsistence fishing that allows us to fill our freezers with delicious salmon for the long winter.

So what is a dipnet? Pretty much what you’d imagine. A large net (up to five feet across) on a very long pole that you hold in the water at the mouth of a river and wait for fish to swim in. Sound a little ridiculous? It’s not! It may be an odd method, but heading home with a huge cooler (or coolers!) full of red salmon to feed a family is extremely gratifying.

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There are only a handful of places in Alaska where dipnetting is allowed, and the season is short. I don’t even know how many tens of thousands of Alaskans carve out time each summer for this exhausting but rewarding venture. Countless families hold it as a tradition, even a necessity. I love seeing parents, grandparents, kids, cousins, friends, and others getting in on the action and doing what they can to provide a winter’s worth of food. Even strangers will sometimes lend a helping hand in a bind! Although that varies year to year and depends on who you end up sitting or standing next to… last year most people we interacted with were pretty grumpy! This year we had tons of friendly folks around us!

The signs of dipnetting start appearing at the beginning of summer. Costco showcases massive coolers perfect for the occasion and decently priced dipnets ripe for the picking. I start seeing vehicles in Anchorage with huge nets bungeed to the top and coolers strapped to hitch-mounted cargo carriers. Early in the summer, those vehicles are headed north to Chitina. Other people start making plans for what weekend they’re going to go down to the Kenai or Kasilof rivers. In July, if you’re out driving in the middle of the night, you’ll likely see trucks and SUVs either coming back from a long day of fishing or heading out.

In fact, my husband and I got up at 1:30 AM to get ready to head out from Anchorage for our day of hauling in the catch. We got to the riverbank just a little after 6 AM, when the day’s fishing opened (after a long drive and quite the process of unloading and hauling stuff down the quarter mile from the parking lot to the beach). All in all, we left late afternoon with ten red salmon (we only had one net to use) and were somewhat satisfied. We really should have stayed longer, but ten was a big improvement from the year before, when we got three! Each head of household (with the proper licenses and tags, of course!) is allowed twenty-five salmon and then another ten for each other member of the household. So we could limit out at thirty-five.

We’ve learned a few things in the past couple years, and we expect next year’s dipnetting extravaganza to be our best yet!

First, we’re absolutely going to make it a whole-weekend thing. It’s just not worth it to drive three hours each way in one day, have to load and unload your stuff at home and at the river, and take the chance that the day you choose to go is going to be a poor one when the salmon aren’t in.

Second, we’re always going to bring a garden wagon (or something similar). Last year we used a plastic snow sled, which was great on the sandy beach but torturous to drag with a full cooler and lots of gear on a quarter-mile gravel road. This year was SO much easier in that regard.

Third, I’m NOT going to get drenched inside my chest waders all the way down to my feet right at the beginning of the day! OK, so I don’t have total control over that, but if next year the wind is causing huge waves, I’m just going to wait it out. Not worth being wet ALL day.   

Dipnetting is a truly Alaskan experience! I’m so grateful the state has a system of subsistence fishing set up for us. There’s nothing like delicious red salmon for dinner in the middle of winter!