An impressive moose hunt, and the Board of Fisheries meetings ahead

Many of you probably already know about this item. Israel Peyton, a member of the Alaska Board of Fisheries, harvested an 80-inch bull moose from unit 16B during this recently ended general moose hunting season.

A friend at Fish and Game emailed me a picture of the rack and skull and Israel in the bed of his truck while he was at the Palmer Fish and Game office. The email stated that Israel had seen this moose in the Susitna drainage last year. He decided to hunt for this specific bull this season. Israel is a pilot who has access to a Super Cub airplane, making his quest easier.

I have often told folks that my approach to hunting moose was to harvest the first legal animal that presented me with a shot. I grew up in a hunting family and my grandfather used to always say that, “tracks and horns make thin soup!” I have also said that I wished, some day before I die, that the first legal animal would be a 72-inch bull. Now that I know there are bigger animals out there, I guess I’ll have to raise my size specifications!

I’ve known Israel for several years and I was always impressed with his knowledge of the outdoors, his clarity in expressing his thoughts, and his honesty and forthrightness in explaining his ideas and opinions. When the seat on the BOF came open this last time around, Israel was one of the very few people I thought would make a good board member. I was pleased to hear of his nomination by the governor and I supported his confirmation by the legislators.

I’m happy for his success on the moose hunt. Now I just have to talk him into taking me along next year!

Speaking of the Board of Fisheries, their workshop session for this current cycle is in Anchorage from Oct. 17-19 at the Egan Center. This year does not involve Cook Inlet issues unless some ACR’s (agenda change requests) are accepted by the board. The Cook Inlet specific ACR’s are numbers 8, 9, and 10.

Number 8 deals with closing a portion of the Big River to sport fishing and reduce the bag limit for salmon, other than king salmon in the South Fork and tributaries of Otter Lake. Number 9 deals with reducing the bag limit for salmon, other than king salmon, from three fish to two fish in Otter Lake and its tributaries. Number 10 is asking the board to close and open all commercial, personal use and sport fisheries concurrently when salmon escapement goals are not going to be achieved in Upper Cook Inlet.

There is one Kodiak based ACR which could have significant effects on Cook Inlet fisheries if the board accepts and acts positively on it. Number 11 asks the board to adopt a new management plan capping weekly and seasonal commercial sockeye salmon harvest in certain portions of the Kodiak Management Area.

What this ACR is asking for is, in essence, a conservation corridor for Cook Inlet bound sockeye salmon as they make their way through the Kodiak area while returning to Cook Inlet. The Cook Inlet commercial drift fishers are the ones asking for this Kodiak management plan change because genetic sampling of the Kodiak harvest has shown that hundreds of thousands of Cook Inlet fish are being intercepted in the Kodiak commercial harvest.

On the surface, this sounds like a good idea. Why not try to protect fish returning to Cook Inlet from interception from outside the area? Here’s the catch at the moment. If this ACR is accepted and acted positively on by the board, that would mean more fish coming to Cook Inlet. Under the current Cook Inlet drift management plan, more fish returning means more fishing time for the drifters. More fishing time for the drifters means even fewer fish, especially Coho salmon, will survive the commercial nets and return to our Northern District.

If the Northern District of Cook Inlet were to support this change to the Kodiak management plan by placing a cap on time and catch numbers for the Kodiak commercial fleet, then a similar cap on fishing time and catch numbers would have to already be in place in the Central District of Cook Inlet to assure sufficient numbers of salmon survive the commercial nets of the Central District drift fleet and return to the Northern District.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too!