Kyle: Keep going, keep going.
Narrator: Often referred to as "the Wagyu of salmon,"
Copper River king salmon can cost up to $120 per pound.
Kyle: For retail price, $1,500, $2,000 right here.
Narrator: That's six times as much as other wild salmon
and 10 times more than farmed salmon.
This salmon is extremely rare to come by.
For fishers in Cordova, Alaska,
it means spending entire days in dangerous waters,
using life-threatening equipment,
and spending thousands of dollars on a permit,
all with the serious chance
of coming back to port empty-handed.
Kyle: F---.
F---.
Narrator: So, is Copper River king salmon
worth the challenge?
And why is it so expensive?
King salmon, also called Chinook salmon,
is one of the five species of wild Pacific salmon
swimming through the Alaskan waters.
The Copper River king is the largest
and most nutritious of them all.
Kyle: The color of the Copper River salmon is just
so vibrant. It's such a deep, deep red.
And it's one of those things that when you see it,
it's very obvious that that's a Copper River salmon.
And it just tastes so buttery, it's amazing.
Narrator: Kyle and his crew set sail
in the early hours of the morning from the Cordova harbor.
It will take them two hours
to reach the delta of the Copper River.
King salmon will stay in the Copper River delta
for only three to six weeks.
Kings are the first wild salmon of the season.
And the start of the season is unpredictable.
Although it roughly always falls around mid-May,
fishers won't know it's time to set sail
until less than a day before.
Kyle: We typically have such a short window to fish.
It's really important for me to be able
to make quick decisions.
Go! Go! Go!
Narrator: The unpredictable outcome of each fishing run
not only affects the price of each catch,
but also builds up the excitement.
Kyle: What? That's insane.
That's insane.
Narrator: The location is the first challenge
for Kyle and his crew.
The delta of the river is very large,
and not a lot of salmon swim in that area.
So fishers like Kyle have to take their boats
to shallow waters.
Kyle: It's extremely dangerous to fish
for a Copper River king salmon,
because they like to hang out in shallow waters.
And when you're fishing in that area,
you're a lot more exposed to Mother Nature.
You know, the waves are crushing.
They're breaking on top of you,
and you're a lot more susceptible to capsizing your boat.
We're about to pick our anchor,
and then we're going to make a set.
Narrator: Once the anchor is set,
the chances of catching anything are slim.
King salmon makes up only a small percentage
of the salmon in the Copper River.
90% is sockeye.
That makes Kyle's job extremely difficult.
Aside from that, local laws require
he uses specific nets called gill nets.
They're hung vertically to catch the fish by their gills.
Gillnetting is an extremely effective way
to catch these fish because each net
is hand-built and completely customized.
So, you know, for a Copper River king salmon,
we use a lot larger mesh size, around 6 inches,
so the smaller fish swim right through it.
And, you know, when we are able to locate a king salmon,
they fit perfectly in our net.
King! King!
F---.
Kyle: Give me a second. I'll explain in a second.
F---.
Should've pulled him over the f---ing bow.
Ah.
So, what had happened was,
you know, so king salmon, they're really large fish,
and they typically don't really get stuck into the net.
They usually just wrap up.
So it's imperative that you have a dip net
to catch them in case they pop out,
and what had happened there was
it was the first king of the day,
I was super, super excited,
I had the net underneath, and it had already peaked
and started to crown over the bow roller,
and I tried to reach forward to pull it over,
but because of that it popped off,
and I was only holding the dip net with one hand,
and 'cause the king was so large,
it overpowered me and it ended up swimming out.
Narrator: But the same features that make gill nets
such an effective way to catch king salmon
are also what make using them so dangerous.
There are a lot of hazards and dangers using a gill net,
specifically on deck for the crew,
just because we are using hydraulic equipment
to send the net out into the water.
There's a lot of loose mesh that goes flying out,
so any loose strings from a hoodie or shoelaces,
all those are really prone to getting snagged.
Narrator: Missed catches are common here
in the Copper River.
Even after spending his whole day out on the boat,
Kyle has a serious chance of coming back empty-handed.
That makes the fish that he does catch even more prized.
Kyle: Oh, f---.
Crew: Now, go? Kyle: Yeah, go, go!
Oh, f---.
Whew!
We just caught this toad of a Copper River king salmon.
This one probably weighs, probably 30, 35 pounds.
And for retail price,
this goes, like, $1,500, $2,000 right here.
And just for a size comparison,
this is a Copper River sockeye salmon.
Yeah, it's got a darker mouth.
And then also on top of the spine,
you'll see it's got spots along the line,
and also this nice silver with spots on the tail as well.
So, this one right here is probably 22 pounds, gross.
It's a very beautiful, very fatty Copper River king salmon.
Very excited that we got the first one on board.
Day's getting started,
and looking forward to catching many more.
Narrator: The huge size of the Copper River king salmon
is due to its migration.
Wild salmon are born in freshwater streams,
like the Copper River,
and then migrate to the ocean as juveniles.
After spending most of their lives at sea,
they return to their home to spawn.
For the kings returning to the Copper River,
this means enduring a 300-mile-long journey
against a 7-mile-per-hour current,
swimming between glaciers,
and gaining 3,600 feet in elevation.
Copper River salmon have the most intense
salmon migratory route out of any salmon in the world.
Because of that long journey home,
it has a huge impact on the flavor
of the Copper River salmon.
Because the moment the salmon enter,
you know, they go from the ocean, the seawater,
and they hit that freshwater of the Copper River salmon,
their body automatically changes into reproductive mode.
So up until that day that they hit that freshwater,
they're just feeding and building up fat
to make that 300-mile-long journey.
Go, go, go, go!
Nice.
Narrator: 39,000 kings are set to return home
to the Copper River this year,
13% below the 10-year average of 46,000.
Out of these 39,000,
fisheries are only permitted to catch less than half
to ensure enough salmon make it up the river
for future generations.
Kyle is only allowed to go out
once enough salmon have escaped the fishing ground
and have started to make their way up the Copper River.
The catch limit is different every day.
It can be reached at any moment.
And when it is, Kyle has to stop fishing
and return to port immediately.
But he still needs to bring home enough
to keep his business running.
And fishing in the Copper River bears high costs.
If I came back empty-handed, it would cost me,
it could be anywhere from $300 to $600 in fuel
and probably a chunk of my pride.
Narrator: For a company like Kyle's,
fuel can top $12,000 a season,
but that's still significantly lower than the cost
of a permit to commercially fish in these waters,
which is $250,000.
When I first started commercial fishing,
I did not save any of my catch for myself,
just because I had taken on so much debt
to buy into the fishery,
I couldn't afford to save any of the salmon for myself.
I eat salmon very regularly now.
F---.
All right, come in, come, come.
Crew: Pull? Kyle: Yeah, come, come.
Oh, oh!
Holy s---.
Go, go, go, go. Go!
[Kyle laughing]
Oh, my God, we got another one.
Crew: That's six!
Kyle: Oh, my God.
That's insane.
Last set of the day, we just brought in
seven Copper River kings.
Insane.
Crew: We're all ... yeah, we're all --
Kyle: Dude, that was bonkers.
Narrator: Once Kyle returns to port,
the fish must be filleted and packaged
as soon as possible to preserve its nutritional value.
Kyle: It takes us about a week
to get our salmon to consumers.
The moment our fishermen return to port,
we'll fillet, portion, vacuum pack, and flash freeze
for a minimum of three days,
so then that way the seafood is
consumable for sushi. It's considered sushi grade.
They're so fatty and so oily, it's hard to hold on to them.
They keep slipping.
Narrator: Kyle sells his king salmon
to fine-dining and sushi restaurants,
but also directly to customers across the country.
Shipping out of Alaska can get very expensive
because of its remote location.
It costs him $65 to ship a 5-pound box of salmon
from Cordova to New York.
Due to an increase in demand,
the price of king salmon has slowly gone up
over the last five years.
A pound of Copper River king salmon
is now going for $100 to $120.
Although bigger fish sell for more,
huge king salmon are getting harder to come by.
A 2020 study found that in the last 60 years,
salmon in Alaska have been getting smaller,
especially kings.
Since 1960, king salmon have lost 8% in body length.
Streams are warming earlier in the year,
and salmon are making their migrations
at a younger age and smaller size.
There's also competition with other fish populations
caused by hatcheries releasing
the fish they produce into the sea.
In the long term, this drop in size
affects the salmon's commercial value,
the transport of nutrients, egg production,
and, especially for king salmon,
it reduces the supply for rural communities.
Kyle: Salmon and seafood in Alaska
is more than just a job.
It's very deeply rooted into our traditions.
We have very many rural communities in Alaska
that rely on these wild salmon runs
as their only source of protein.
So, they don't have, you know, some of them,
they don't have access to grocery stores,
so it's really important that we have
these salmon runs return for them.