Flexibility key in Kenai salmon debate

ANCHORAGE — The buzzword at the Alaska Board of Fisheries Feb. 5 was “flexibility.” After long deliberations and several revisions of wording the Board of Fish adopted major changes to a proposal addressing the Kenai River Late-Run King Salmon Management Plan.

The final revision includes paired restrictions and trigger points to implement these restrictions. If restrictions, like no bait or no retention of king salmon in the sport fishery, are imposed, then restrictions on the number of nets allowed and amount of fishing time kick in for the commercial set gillnet fishery. Trigger points involve the number of king salmon either counted in the river or that are projected to escape into the river system. Below a certain level of returning fish, restrictions are imposed.

As part of this management plan, the Board of Fish adopted an experimental approach on net depth to the commercial fishery. A pilot acoustic research project, done by a private Canadian fisheries research company and funded by Alaska Department of Fish and Game this past summer in Cook Inlet, found that king salmon tend to run in deeper saltwater than the sockeye returning to the Kenai River.

While the sample size of fish in the study was small, the number of data points collected provided enough validity to suggest that a shorter-depth set net would significantly reduce the catch of kings while still allowing almost as large a catch of sockeye. If the king harvest can be reduced significantly in the commercial fishery, the commercial set net fleet can fish more time for sockeye, allowing perhaps even more sockeye to be harvested in that fishery.

A couple of commercial set netters testified during the public testimony period earlier in the meeting that they had also experimented with shorter nets this past season and found similar results to the acoustics study; namely, that shorter set nets caught significantly fewer king salmon while still catching almost as many sockeye as a “normal” deeper mesh net commonly used in the fishery.

Adopting the use of shorter nets has incentives for the commercial fishers written into the plan, but that use is not mandatory. The commercial fisher can choose to fish deeper with fewer nets or can use additional shallower nets during fishing periods.

The hope, as stated by board chairman Karl Johnstone, is that in three years when the next Upper Cook Inlet meeting is held, enough data on the effectiveness of using shallower nets to protect kings while still harvesting sockeyes will be available to justify a mandatory change to shorter nets in the fishery.

The board made only minor changes to the Kenai River Early Run King Salmon Sport Fishery Management Plan, but the minor wording changes incorporated in the plan extended more flexibility to fish and game to manage the sport fishery under this plan. The board took final action on a portion of the 236 proposals before the body at this meeting.

The Kenai portion of the meeting continues and the Northern District proposals are scheduled for further public discussion and board actions starting this weekend. Personal use fishery proposals were discussed Thursday.

The Board of Fish meeting continues through Feb. 13 at the Egan Convention and Visitors Center in Anchorage. Public involvement is encouraged to allow the board to make the best possible decisions on proposals based on science and public needs.