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In-season management of salmon harvest requires real-time data. Specifically, following a brief period of open fishing, knowledge of harvest outcomes is useful when deciding the nature of subsequent fishing periods. This in-season management strategy is relatively new to the lower Kuskokwim River of western Alaska, where depressed salmon runs have caused restrictions to the subsistence fishery. We have developed an in-season monitoring program to rapidly inform managers about fishery outcomes from short-duration (6–24 h) fishery openings. Completed trip information and one or more aerial surveys are combined to estimate daily effort and harvest from drift gillnet fishers spanning 11 communities and ~130 river kilometers. We present a re-analysis of the 40 monitored openers in June–July 2016–2023, and validate harvest estimates of Chinook, chum, and sockeye salmon by comparing them to post-season estimates derived from an independent long-term monitoring program. Our results indicate that the program has produced estimates of sufficient quality to inform in-season managers, although it will likely need alterations to be successful in years with less restricted fishing. 

ABSTRACT. Data availability challenges the management of small-scale fisheries in large river basins. One way to circumvent the challenges of data collection is to rely on local stakeholders who are well-positioned to collect data that can inform management through community-based monitoring (CBM). Although science and management has increasingly considered opportunities for community involvement in scientific research, the efficacy of these programs are rarely assessed. We describe a current CBM initiative in the Kuskokwim River Basin of western Alaska. We then explore how existing approaches for incorporating local involvement in fisheries research and management measure against claims made by CBM programs to understand pathways for data utility for decision makers and approaches to capacity building and meaningful engagement of local citizens. We identify major gaps in the CBM literature and explore one of these gaps through an interview-based study of public participation in the Kuskokwim. We find that the CBM program intent to collect high quality data was complemented by increasing trust in data stewards. Ultimately, through our interview findings we illustrate how definitions of local engagement differ, how CBM data is used by decision makers, and how trust in data is dependent on trust in data stewards and the infrastructure that supports that stewardship.