A look at upcoming fisheries meetings

Last week, I mentioned the Alaska Board of Fisheries met on April 24 to address a couple of emergency petitions they had received. One of those petitions was from the Mt. Yenlo Fish and Game Advisory Committee asking that king salmon subsistence fishing be allowed at the traditional fish wheel site the local residents operate on the Upper Yentna River.

I hadn’t heard the outcome of that meeting but after talking with a local biologist, I was told the probable outcome was that the board was going to allow a king salmon personal use fishery using the fish wheel with a maximum cap of around 150 to 200 fish. Apparently, this information is either incorrect or not yet finalized.

This past Tuesday, I received an email from Fish and Game announcing a BOF one-day teleconference meeting beginning at 9 am on May 14. The purpose of the teleconference is to address the Mt. Yenlo petition and a Tyonek Fish and Game Advisory Committee petition regarding the Northern District king salmon commercial fishery.

No oral public testimony will be taken during the meeting. The board intends to have a live streaming of the meeting on the internet, available on the board’s website atwww.boardoffisheries.adfg.alaska.gov. Juneau, Fairbanks, and Anchorage will have listen-only sites available. You can access meeting documents and further information by going to the BOF website and looking on the meeting information webpage.

Last fall, I wrote about a meeting between Gov. Bill Walker and members of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission, where he was proposing getting the various salmon fisheries stakeholders in Cook Inlet together for a workshop to see if any of the contentious issues between user groups could be settled through a consensus and compromise series of discussions. According to the governor, the MSBFWC would be a major player here, representing the views of the borough and its many residents.

Another email, or rather, a series of emails showed up this past week addressing that topic. The governor has asked Sam Cotton, the ADF&G Commissioner, to forward a list of folks the commissioner thought would be critical to this workshop. The intent, at least to begin with, is to keep the working group relatively small and as issues get identified, bring in the affected users for continued work on the topic. The current workshop makeup involves two mayors, the borough fish and wildlife commission, members from local fish and game advisory committees, and the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, or UCIDA. This group represents the drift fishing fleet in the Central District of Cook Inlet.

The second email established a meeting date of May 9at 1 p.m. at the governor’s offices in Anchorage. The governor wants to address the group to see if there really is justification to formalize a working group without wasting folks’ time. The list of invited attendees includes Mayor Halter, three members of the MSBFWC, the chairpersons of both the Matanuska Valley and Mt. Yenlo F&G advisory committees, the mayor of Kenai, UCIDA representatives, and some Kenai Peninsula advisory committee members.

I didn’t make the short list from the MSBFWC, but you can bet I’ll be asking a lot of questions about what happened!

I also mentioned last fall about the potential formation of another working group to assist the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council in rewriting their Fisheries Management Plan to comply with a court order resulting from a lawsuit. The NPFMC is now initiating a call for nominations for membership on what is being called the Cook Inlet Salmon Committee.

Quoting from the email, “The Committee’s primary function will be to (1) review and provide comments on specific, Council-identified issues; (2) develop options for fishery management measures for specific, Council-identified management needs, and (3) provide perspectives on potential social and economic impacts of proposed fishery management measures.”

The Council will accept nominations and applications for membership on the committee until 12 pm (noon) on June 1, 2018. The mailing address is: North Pacific Fishery Management Council, 605 West 4th, Suite 306, Anchorage, Alaska 99501-2252.

And, finally, the Mt. McKinley Mountain Men muzzleloading club will be hosting a two-day blackpowder pistol shoot at the Matanuska Valley Sportsmen’s shooting range, located on the Glenn Highway just south of Palmer. The shoot, known as The 1000 Point Match, begins tomorrow, May 5 and runs into Sunday. Matches will be held for percussion and flintlock single-shot pistols and cap-and-ball revolvers.

Loaner guns will be available if needed. Hope to see you there!