As the seasons change, we look toward winter events

We had our first hard frost this past week. The heating fuel delivery guy filled all our fuel tanks and we made an appointment to get our septic tank pumped. The leaves are almost all gone and I’m scheming how to fit all my various trailers and equipment in my storage building. We’ve seen the fall equinox come and go. I guess it’s safe to say that summer is over!

With this change of season lots of other indoor activities are scheduled, so get out your calendar and make some notes.

The annual fall Alaska Gun Collector’s Association gun show is scheduled for this coming weekend, Oct. 8-9, at Raven Hall on the Alaska State Fair Grounds property near Palmer. This is one of the bigger gun shows each year and, being right after the PFD distribution, usually sees a lot of buying and selling of firearms and related accessories.

I don’t have definite information on times or entry fees, but the show has historically opened each day around 10 a.m. and has an entry charge of $5-7 or so. Parking has always been free. I plan to be there Saturday helping the Mt. McKinley Mountainman club at their table, at least for a while.

If you can take the time to make the trip, the Alaska Board of Fisheries is holding their workshop session in Kenai/Soldotna at the Soldotna Regional Sport Complex on Arena Drive from Oct.18-20. The daily sessions begin at 8:30 a.m. This meeting is normally the organizational meeting for the entire upcoming board cycle, which concentrates heavily on Cook Inlet this year.

The BOF workshop doesn’t normally include any public testimony, but this year, they have scheduled one day (Oct. 18) to allow folks who can’t attend either the Lower or the Upper Cook Inlet meetings to comment on proposals coming up for consideration.

This is also the meeting where the BOF usually addresses Stock of Concern designations for various salmon populations in the areas being addressed that cycle. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission submitted three proposals concerning SOC’s. The first seeks to designate the Shell Lake sockeye population as a SOC at the most severe level of conservation concern. This population, at one time, contributed around 10 percent of the entire Northern District production of sockeye salmon. Over the last several years, returns have only ranged from three-figure counts to as low as single digit return numbers.

The second proposal asks the BOF to identify rebuilding goals, objectives, and delisting criteria for SOC salmon within the Susitna and West Cook Inlet regulatory units. The BOF has an established procedure explaining how a salmon population qualifies for SOC designation, but there are no established protocols for how to determine when a population has reasonably recovered and can be safely removed from SOC status.

The third proposal seeks a change in the designated status of Susitna River sockeye under the SOC listing. A stock of concern designation can be done on three different levels. The least severe is a yield concern listing. That is currently where the Susitna sockeye populations are listed. The next level is a management concern and the most severe is a conservation concern. This proposal is asking that the Susitna River sockeye be upgraded to a management concern level. Only once in the past eight years has the escapement goal for all the Susitna sockeye populations, as measured by ADF&G, been met. This population was declared a stock of yield concern in 2008.

These are all important issues for the Northern District and numbers in attendance along with public comments will all have a bearing on what the BOF decides to do. Public comments to be included in the board books closes Oct. 4, but comments will still be accepted at the meeting itself. Check with ADF&G for the procedure to submit comments after the due date.

Another date for your calendar is the evening of Oct. 27. The MSBFWC will once again host a public meeting with both the Commercial Fisheries and Sport Fish Divisions of ADF&G to discuss this past season’s salmon returns, how well escapements were achieved, and other considerations. Pat Shields, the Area Commercial Fisheries Management Biologist from Soldotna is expected to attend along with Sam Ivey, the Area Management Biologist for Sport Fish. Sam is from the Palmer office.

This is an excellent chance to hear the department’s views on how well, or not, the various Northern District salmon populations are doing.