After more than three years of efforts to turn Alexander Creek into a killing field for invasive northern pike that gobble up prized king salmon, state fisheries biologists are seeing glimmers of success.
"Right now, it's kind of early to say for sure we're successful," said Dave Rutz, a fisheries biologist at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Palmer Office. "But we've had the highest king counts in a decade over the last two years. But … we need a couple more years of that."
Among the favorable signs:
• Some 15,000 pike have been removed from Alexander Creek in three years, with nearly 200 more gillnetted out of three Deshka River sloughs as well as Moose and Indian Creeks.
• Four years of trapping showed that juvenile salmon, once only captured downstream of Sucker Creek, some 18 miles from the river mouth, are now spread throughout the 40-mile creek. "This indicates that juvenile salmon are not only recolonizing old rearing areas," Rutz said, "but also that their numbers have increased to a level beyond the threshold of northern pike predation."
• Anglers are catching fewer northern pike in both the lake and the creek despite regulations that require anglers to kill all pike they catch. And, according to Rutz, Alexander Creek residents say catches of other resident fish, such as grayling and rainbow trout, are on the upswing.
• King salmon escapement numbers are rising at the same time other Southcentral waterways show declines. "We've had the highest counts in a decade the last two years," Rutz said.
Before voracious pike populations exploded in the drainage, Alexander Creek was one of the top destinations for Southcentral anglers seeking king salmon. As many as 11,000 kings a year returned, helping support nine lodges dedicated to sportfishing.
Now, Rutz said, there really aren't any lodges. Most of the angling efforts, except from those seeking pike, have dried up.
To be sure, the pike problem in the Alexander Creek drainage is far more difficult than the same issue in a number of Southcentral lakes, such as Cheney Lake in Anchorage, where a poison can often wipe out every one of the toothy invaders.
Alexander Creek is 40 miles long and connected to several lakes and thousands of square miles of wetlands. Wiping out every last northern pike in the drainage is a Sisyphean task for fisheries biologists.
"It's just so difficult because northern pike can survive in a pothole," Rutz said. "It is likely that Alexander Creek supports the most prolific invasive northern pike population not only in Alaska but on a global scale as well."
Consequently, the goal of Fish and Game isn't the elimination of Alexander Creek pike. Rutz believes the best he can hope for is to control the population.
And the recent good signs don't translate into king salmon fishing for anglers next summer in a waterway that has been closed since 2009.
"Not next year," Rutz said. "We haven't reached the bottom end of the goal, around 800 returning kings. It's going to take quite a bit more to bring it back to some kind of fishery."
Contact Mike Campbell at mcampbell(at)alaskadispatch.com