Board of Fish ends meeting with flurry of activity

ANCHORAGE — The Alaska Board of Fisheries ended its 14-day Upper Cook Inlet meeting Thursday afternoon by undoing all the changes it made earlier to the Northern District Salmon Management Plan. The earlier changes would have created paired restrictions between the sport fishery and the Northern District commercial setnet fishery. Plan revisions were eliminated in a split board vote.

An attempt to undo changes made to the Late-Run Kenai King Salmon Management Plan failed on a split vote of the board as a last action before the board adjourned. Changes made to the Central District Drift Gillnet Fishery Management Plan were left untouched.

In other board actions taken earlier in the meeting, Sheep Creek king salmon were added to the list of stock-of-concern fish in the Northern District. This raises the count to eight stocks of concern in the Northern District. The Susitna-Yentna sockeye salmon were continued as a stock of concern. This means the Northern District now has eight of the 12 salmon stocks of concern statewide.

In other actions the board took Wednesday afternoon and Thursday, a proposal asking to expand the waters closed to commercial fishing within one statute mile from the mouth of the Little Susitna River failed. Proposals asking to establish a commercial fishery and to pay a bounty on northern pike also failed.

Several proposals asking the Board of Fish to establish escapement goals for king, coho, sockeye and chum salmon on various river systems in the Northern District failed. Proposers asking the board to establish a king salmon management plan for the Deshka River were disappointed by the board’s failure to do so. However, the board did adopt a proposal to push back the starting time bait could be used on the Deshka River for king salmon from May 15 to June 1. Several proposals to mandate stocking king or coho salmon in the Deshka or Little Susitna rivers also were denied.

A proposal extending the season for the upper Yentna River fish-wheel subsistence fishery passed while a second proposal to create a new dipnet subsistence fishery on the lower Yentna River failed. Proposals seeking to place restrictions on sport fishing on the Little Susitna River, including limiting the harvest of king and coho salmon to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and prohibiting fishing from a boat for coho failed. The board did, however, pass a requirement that only four-stroke or clean-burning direct-injection two-stroke engines be used for fishing on the Little Su after Jan. 1, 2017.

The board passed two new youth-only fishing days for the Eklutna Tailrace, one for kings and the second for coho salmon. An extension of the fishing area around the Eklutna Tailrace also was passed. The board also gave the green light to some housekeeping proposals updating stocked lakes lists and shifting some lakes in Unit 4 of the Susitna River drainage to Unit 1. The bag limit for landlocked king and other salmon for Anchorage stocked lakes also was reduced.

A proposal offered by Alaska Department of Fish and Game to change the open hours for sport fishing on Jim Creek was modified by the board to allow continued 24-hour fishing, but from the second Saturday in August until the end of the sport fishing season, sport fishing will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. The definition of Upper Jim Creek was revised and the provision to prohibit continued sport fishing after taking a bag limit of salmon was added.

Several proposals asking that barbless hooks be required for salmon fishing around Cook Inlet, coupled with other sport fishing restrictions, failed. However, the board did pass a requirement that all king salmon sport fishing on the Kenai River, once restricted to catch-and-release, must be done using barbless hooks. The board added a definition of barbless hook in the regulation.

Various sport, personal-use and subsistence reporting requirement proposals were also voted down. A proposal seeking to limit the amount of sport-caught fish that could be exported from Alaska also failed. The board did not approve adding an additional drift-boat only day on the Kenai River.

All the changes made at this meeting impacting fishing in the Northern District and around Cook Inlet should be available from the Palmer Fish and Game office in a couple of weeks and will be incorporated in the sport fish regulation booklet as they become effective. A summary of the board actions taken for all proposals considered at the Upper Cook Inlet Finfish meeting should be posted online on the Board of Fish Upper Cook Inlet meeting website in a few days.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.