Cast a line in at workshops

Winter has arrived. The lakes are frozen, the ground is snow-covered and driving requires special attention given the often slippery roads and limited visibility with snow flurries and fog. I have a friend who’s already been out ice fishing on some lakes further north. Me? I’ll wait a bit longer before venturing out on still relatively thin ice to fish.

What can I do while I wait for thicker ice? I’ll fill a couple of days by attending the third annual Mat-Su Salmon Science and Conservation Symposium on Nov. 16-17 at the Central Mat-Su Public Safety Building in Wasilla. The symposium will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, and there is no cost to attend.

Folks who have already registered for the symposium will be provided lunch and snacks. If you haven’t registered but decide to stop in and see what’s happening, there might be enough extra food to cover you. If the food runs out, there will still be interesting presentations about what’s happening in the Mat-Su to protect and enhance our salmon populations.

One topic you might not be familiar with is the extent of the value of sportfishing to the Mat-Su Borough economy. The Sport Fish Division of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) commissioned a study a couple of years ago to determine what the true economic value of sportfishing is statewide. Tuesday morning, Dave Hanson of the Mat-Su Borough and Andy Couch of the Mat-Su Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Sportsmen’s Committee will present the economic impact sportfishing has locally on the Mat-Su economy. I think you might be surprised at what you will hear!

A couple of other presentations you might find interesting on Tuesday include “Shallow Groundwater in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Alaska” by Colin Kikuchi and Janet Curran of the U.S. Geological Survey and “Stream Temperature Monitoring Network for Mat-Su Salmon Streams” by Sue Mauger of Cook Inletkeeper.

I attended this symposium last year and was fascinated by a presentation on how groundwater flows in the Mat-Su and the interconnections between water systems you just don’t expect to exist. In years past, ADF&G has determined that water temperature was a major contributor to the decline of king salmon in the Deshka River back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so monitoring stream temperatures can help in the management of our salmon populations.

One poster session I plan to review Tuesday afternoon is “Fisheries Research Direction of the USFWS in the Matanuska-Susitna Basin” by Jon Gerken of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The USFWS is the federal equivalent of our own state Fish and Game department. Finding out what research they are planning for our area could hint at what our state Fish and Game will be doing in the near future to augment and compliment some of the federal efforts. The two agencies work together on many projects to benefit our resources across the state.

Perhaps the highlight of the entire symposium will happen Tuesday night at Evangelo’s Restaurant on the Parks Highway from 7 to 9 p.m. Ray Troll, the internationally known fish humor artist, will make a presentation on “Fish Worship: Is it Wrong?” This is a special evening presentation of the Mat-Su Salmon Science and Conservation Symposium. Contact Corinne Smith (276-3133 x121) for more information.

If your interest in Mat-Su salmon is primarily sportfishing, you might want to attend the Wednesday morning early session. Presentations by staff from the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association, ADF&G, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Alaska Fairbanks will talk about chum, coho and sockeye spawning and other distributions around the Valley. The more you know about a fish or game animal, the easier time you will have finding it.

Following that session, a presentation on stream bank damage on Fish Creek as a result of the personal use fishery will be made by Catherine Inman of the Wasilla Soil and Water Conservation District. Whenever several hundred people converge on an area as small as the banks of Fish Creek for a personal use fishery, damage is inevitable — unless some provision is made to harden the banks against the onslaught.

The final Wednesday afternoon session includes presentations on salmon habitat and passage restoration. One thing I took away from last year’s symposium was how much effort is being put into maintaining and reclaiming salmon habitat here in the Valley, and the extensive efforts being made by many different groups to improve salmon passage through things like road culverts, which can block fish passage to traditional salmon spawning areas.

If you are free for any or all of the scheduled symposium timing, I would recommend you stop by and see what’s doing. Yes, there will probably be some dry science presented some of the time, but there will also be a lot of down-to-earth information presented that will benefit even the non-scientific folks reading this, too.

I hope to see you there.

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