After Two Years Off Due To Low Stocks, Ketchikan Silver Derby Returning

After a two-year hiatus amid struggling salmon runs in the area, the Ketchikan CHARR Salmon Derby is returning from September 3-5 with a silver derby after its longtime traditional king salmon event was switched up as Chinook stocks declined around the Southeast Alaska location. But the silver event wasn’t held in 2020 or 2021.

Here’s some info from the Ketchikan Daily News:

CHARR organized a silver salmon derby in 2018 and 2019 in place of its traditional king derby amid concerns over king salmon numbers, but the events were still billed as the 71st and 72nd Annual Ketchikan CHARR Salmon Derby. The renaming of the derby as the First Annual Ketchikan CHARR Silver Salmon Derby marks a rebrand of sorts, although CHARR derby coordinator Michael Briggs hopes the events will still be familiar to most people. 

This year will be the first since 2019 in which any sort of salmon derby was held by the organization. Briggs explained that the decision to forego the king derby indefinitely was informed by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. 

“The reality is that the stocks of kings have been deplenished to the point where we may not be able to do a king derby again for a while,” Briggs said. “We’re hopeful that the measures that Fish and Game are taking to help replenish the stocks do their job and make it so sometime down the road we can actually have a king salmon derby again, but, at this point, it’s not in the cards.”