Fisheries board faces important issues

Another Board of Fisheries cycle is set to begin with the workshop meeting in Anchorage at the Egan Civic & Convention Center Oct. 21-22. This workshop meeting serves as the organizational meeting for the coming year. One critical item discussed only at this meeting involves requests to review proposals outside the established agenda for the year. These proposals are called agenda change requests.

This 2015-2016 cycle is an off-year for Cook Inlet fisheries concerns. Our turn comes in the 2016-2017 cycle. However, a couple of ACRs have been introduced which, if accepted and ultimately approved by the board, would hit us hard in the Northern District by undoing all the gains we achieved with the rewrite of the Central District Drift Net Management Plan at the 2014 BOF meeting.

ACR 13 asks the board to remove the “1 percent rule” from the current drift fleet management plan. What this rule does is provide for an orderly transition from management primarily for commercial sockeye harvest to management minimizing the harvest of coho salmon. When less than one percent of the total catch of sockeye for the season is harvested during two consecutive commercial openings, this signals the end of the fishery because the fish have stopped running in harvestable numbers.

The setnet fleet has been governed by this rule for years in scaling down and closing their fishery. The drifters didn’t have anything similar until the board added the provision to the drift fleet management plan in 2014. Prior to that time, the drift fleet would regularly target silvers later in the season while claiming to be fishing for sockeye.

Other Cook Inlet fisheries management plans had stated for over 35 years that silvers were to be managed primarily for the sport and guided sport fisheries. However, with no mechanism to shut down the drift fishery for sockeyes, this board intent was never followed. Large commercial harvests of silvers continued even after sockeyes were scarce.

Ever wonder why there seemed to be few coho in our northern waters, even into mid-August?

ACR 14 is asking the board to increase the time and area open to the drift fleet to fish. Again, prior to the 2014 board meeting, the fleet was usually allowed to fish throughout Cook Inlet during most of the openings. Our northern runs of sockeye and coho were being intercepted in the middle of Cook Inlet by the drift fleet, who claimed to be targeting Kenai and Kasilof sockeye stocks.

Through a Valley-wide effort made during the 2014 board meeting to explain the reduced and endangered northern runs due largely to commercial interception, the board created a “conservation corridor” up the center of Cook Inlet and established “expanded harvest zones” along the east side of Cook Inlet to allow the commercial harvest of salmon stocks bound primarily for the Kenai and Kasilof Rivers. Northern stocks were allowed to move relatively unmolested through the conservation corridor to their natal streams up north.

These changes have only been in effect for two commercial seasons. That is not enough time to determine for sure that they are working as intended. Also, the dynamics of the commercial fisheries have been active over the last five years. The setnetters were impacted with concerns for the health of Kenai River king salmon. As a result, the drifters fished more and we saw fewer fish up north.

With changes made to both the setnet and drift fleet management plans in 2014, the setnetters could fish more, the Kenai kings were being better protected and the drifters went from big harvest years when the setnetters were restricted to a more even sharing of the commercial harvest. Even with these changes, the drifters still caught a lot of fish and made a lot of money.

Here’s a fact: 2015 saw all Susitna/Yentna River sockeye (Stock of Concern) escapement goals achieved for the first time since ADF&G changed their monitoring system in 2009. Further, making the established goals occurred for only the third time in the last 15 years. We also saw good silver returns to our Valley waters. While it’s too early to say for sure, it appears the overhauled management plan is working. Now is not the time to change.

Public testimony is not taken during the workshop meeting but you can submit written comments if you wish to share your thoughts with the board regarding these two ACRs. The comment deadline is Oct. 1, so don’t delay too long in making your thoughts known.

Howard Delo, a retired fisheries biologist, writes a weekly outdoors column for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. This column is the writer’s and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman or its parent company, Wick Communications.