ADF&G salmon management prioritizes commercial harvests

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website, commercial gill netters working Upper Cook Inlet have harvested 157,528 coho salmon as of July 29. But according to Mike Hudson, owner of 3 Rivers Fly & Tackle in Wasilla, “Sport anglers are catching a few coho salmon in several Mat-Su Valley locations, but I don’t know of one Mat-Su Valley location with even ‘good’ coho salmon sport fishing at this time.”

Hudson also mentioned a brief stronger, but earlier 600 coho salmon push that seems to have already moved upstream of most anglers on the Little Susitna River, only to be followed by a shortage of salmon.

Jeff Boatright, operator of Susitna Landing, reported sport anglers caught some coho salmon at the landing over the July 27 and 28 weekend, but he knew of only one angler who had harvested a daily bag limit of two coho salmon during that time.

On Tuesday, local ADF&G sport fish manager Sam Ivey told me all the Mat-Su Valley coho salmon sport fisheries the department had information of over the July 27 and 28 weekend produced fair coho salmon fishing — at best.

Local sport fishing guide Greg Acord was upset enough with ADF&G coho salmon management to contact Ivey and commercial manager Pat Shields over the past couple days. Part of his message follows:

“I don’t know what to say about all of the information you have sent. All I know is that I have spent the past 21 years guiding on the Little Susitna River. Last week I would have predicted a great run of healthy silver salmon, and now it seems like the run has been stopped, the fish are all small, unhealthy and net marked. Your escapement numbers may be indicating that there are fish in the river, but what I am seeing is a bunch of beat up, small fish.

“It would be interesting to talk to the ADFG employees at the weir to see how many healthy fish are actually making it up the river.

“Greg

“P.S. The fishing is slow to say the least.”

Like Acord, throughout Upper Cook Inlet more and more sport anglers and personal use fishers who make up the vast majority of Alaskans hoping to harvest some of the area’s bountiful salmon resource are growing more and more disgruntled and upset with ADF&G management that provides an unreasonably large portion of those fish to a much smaller number of commercial fishermen. Sure, sport and personal-use fishers are allowed to fish, but what good is that if the vast majority of the salmon have already been harvested before they even reach the areas where most sport fishing and personal-use fishing occurs?

In the Mat-Su, the only personal-use fishery will likely not occur for the second year in a row, as the Fish Creek sockeye salmon escapement is far short of the department’s 50,000 fish trigger for opening the personal use fishery (during July), and Fish Creek sockeye salmon escapement numbers are low enough that there is some uncertainty as to whether the minimum of the department’s 20,000 to 70,000 goal range will be achieved. As of July 29, only 14,281 sockeye have swam past the Fish Creek Weir. In contrast to no sport of personal use salmon fishing at Fish Creek during the entire month of July, ADF&G managers have allowed Upper Cook Inlet commercial fishermen to harvest 2,619,617 sockeye salmon out in saltwater before they could reach their in-stream destinations.

While ADF&G has been more restrictive of the drift gillnet fleet in 2013 resulting in somewhat better salmon escapements to Mat-Su and other Northern Cook Inlet streams, nearly half of all Upper Cook Inlet commercially harvested sockeye salmon (1,303,494), more than 70 percent of commercially harvested coho salmon (116,363), and more than 80 percent of commercially harvested chum salmon (131,337) have been caught through July 29 by the drifters while fishing the Central District Drift, the area where most Mat-Su-bound coho, sockeye and chum salmon are believed to be harvested.

Mat-Su sport anglers, personal use fishers, Northern District commercial fishers, sport fishing guides and other Mat-Su businesses that depend upon healthy Mat-Su salmon fisheries would be wise to contact Governor Parnell and their state legislators with specific requests if they would like to see a more equal sharing of Upper Cook Inlet salmon resources.

Mat-Su salmon

abundance late,

but coming?

While Mat-Su sport salmon fishing harvest opportunities have been scarce in July to say the least, there is hope that as a result of some of ADF&G’s more restrictive measures on commercial harvests a larger abundance of coho salmon may reach Northern Cook Inlet streams for the first time in the past five years. Ivey anticipates the Little Susitna River coho salmon fishery will open to bait fishing as scheduled on Aug. 6 — for the first time in three years, as coho salmon escapements through the Little Susitna River Weir indicate there may be enough coho salmon for at least half a season of bait fishing on this popular sport fishery. Other Mat-Su streams should see better fishing starting by early August as well.

Have a good week of fishing!

Andy Couch owns and operates Fishtale River Guides (fish4salmon.com) and is a member of the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission.