A heavy return of sockeye salmon up the Alsek and Tatshenshini rivers has prompted an increase in the number of fish recreational anglers can keep.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans(DFO) announced Monday the catch limits for sport fishing have been raised from two per day to four, while possession limits have risen from four to eight.

"The lower goal of the (spawning) escapement goal has been met and we are forecasting 10,000 above the top end, which is 15,000,” DFO fisheries manager Bill Waugh explained this morning. "So we are looking at a total of 28,000-plus.”

He said this year's above-average migration of fall sockeye up the Alsek drainage is not the huge success story the Fraser River run is turning out to be, but it's expected to be the largest since the run of 34,000 in 2003.

The years 2004 through 2009 were dismal, Waugh pointed out, adding that only twice in the six years did the run attain the minimum escapement goal of 7,500.

As of Monday, 12,485 sockeye have passed through the weir at the mouth of the Klukshu River at Dalton Post, compared to 3,145 by the same time last year.

Waugh said all indications from the U.S. commercial fishery at the mouth of the Alsek point to a stronger than expected run which will peak over the next two weeks.

"So there is opportunity for both the First Nation and recreational anglers to harvest additional fish.”

The Fraser River is teeming with sockeye salmon this year.

The total run is expected to be 25 to 30 million, the highest since 1913, It comes just a year after a horrendous return prompted a public inquiry into how a 2009 prediction of 10 million fish could be so far off.

Waugh said sockeye abundance is not boiling over along the entire Pacific coast this season, as both the returns on the Taku River drainage and the Stikine drainage have been near average or slightly below.

The year's run of early summer sockeye to the Aug. 15 cutoff date was tallied at 5,053 salmon, up from 1,247 last year and almost double the 10-year average. The summer run is closed to anglers.

This summer's chinook salmon migration up the Alsek and Tatshenshini was also plentiful, with 2,356 passing through the Klukshu weir, compared to 1,565 last year and a 10-year average of 1,401.

In the Yukon River drainage, however, it was the opposite.

Fish managers on both sides of the Yukon-Alaska border were predicting a minimum 50,000 chinook would reach the border downriver from Dawson City.

It's estimated slightly fewer than 33,000 cleared the border, or just above the 30,000-bench mark which calls for restrictions on the Yukon's aboriginal fishery.

The total run counted by Alaska's Pilot sonar station upriver from the mouth, however, was 114,270, down about 18 per cent from the 10-year average of 139,892.