Make your voice heard at meeting

With poor king salmon returns and coho salmon returns resulting in Alaska Department of Fish and Game emergency orders to close some of the most economically and recreationally important Mat-Su Valley sport fisheries during the 2012 season, the Mat-Su Valley legislative delegation is hosting a public meeting with ADF&G Commissioner Cora Campbell and a representative from the Alaska Department of Commerce.

The meeting will be at 3 p.m., Aug. 29 at Willow Island Resort, Mile 71.5, Parks Highway.

Over the past 24 hours I have received notices of this meeting from legislators, three outdoor organizations and individuals. In a perfect world, we could all count on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to look after Mat-Su Valley salmon fisheries; however, the impact of a good turnout of people attending this meeting and letting Campbell know how important Mat-Su Valley salmon populations are to the people living in the borough cannot be overstated.

Impacts when ADF&G allows over-harvest of Mat-Su-bound coho salmon lower in Cook Inlet have been borne in fishing restrictions and closures to Northern District commercial setnetters and in-river sport anglers, fishing guides, Valley fish processors, lodging businesses, gas stations, sporting goods retailers and even UPS shipments. At the urgings of Rep. Mark Neuman and others, Governor Parnell has included mention of Valley fisheries in his declaration of an Alaska king salmon fishery disaster.

Talking with two other charter operators — Bob Meals of Tri River Charters in Talkeetna and Pat Donelson of I FIsh Alaska Guide Service — operating primarily on the Deshka RIver, I learned that both of them notice a direct drop in charter business that goes beyond the limits of a restriction or closure.

In Meals’ case, he mentioned that as soon as king fishing on the Deshka was restricted to artificial lures only, his business experienced a direct drop in king salmon business, even though his trips were on the Talkeetna River and not the Deshka. Of course, only a few days later both the Deshka and all other Mat-Su Valley fisheries targeting wild king salmon were closed early, and the results were immediate, but once again farther-reaching.

Donelson told me that even after the Deshka River king salmon closure had ended, the impacts continued to undermine his business with fewer coho salmon bookings. Donelson mentioned that when prospective guests called and asked where his trips would be guided, they had an impression that even the coho fishing was closed on Deshka River, and that stigma was difficult for his company to overcome. In reality, such a stigma cannot be entirely overcome. Anyone with experience with the history of Mat-Su Valley salmon fisheries could easily see that fishing effort was down at all of the largest boat launches in the valley during 2012.

Deshka Landing had the most users of any boat launch facility during the king salmon season, but late king season and the silver salmon season were both participation busts. Little Susitna River Public Use Facility, Susitna Landing and Talkeetna Boat Launch fared much worse than Deshka Landing, with extremely low user participation during the king season, followed by poor silver salmon user participation as well.

Even with lower than normal sport angler participation, in-season sport fishing restrictions, followed by season ending closures, most of ADF&G’s Mat-Su Valley salmon spawning escapement goals have not been attained for the 2012 season. To be fair, some escapement numbers are still being counted through Little Susitna River weir, Deshka River weir, Fish Creek weir and Judd Lake weir; however, it would take the largest percentage of late-returning salmon on record for ADF&G to attain escapement minimums for some of these systems.

Late season coho fishing

For those willing to venture north of Willow during the past week, streams along the Parks Highway have provided mixed results for coho salmon.

For instance, on my guided charters, guests caught at least some coho salmon each trip. A few trips, the results were skinnier than others. In addition, guests also caught a mixture of chum salmon, pink salmon, rainbow trout, whitefish and suckers. On an average or good year for coho salmon, I might take guests out and have everyone on the boat catch a limit of cohos from one anchor spot. This year has been quite different. Good fishing this year consists of catching a few coho immediately after starting at a new spot, with the expectation that everyone on the boat would catch a couple from the spot.

What has usually happened is that after landing a fish or two, the bites slow way down and before long stop altogether. Most days we’ve observed very few fish rolling. When a spot where my boat has been catching fish goes dead, we sometimes have to try five or six additional spots before finding another one producing fish.

Still, it is great to be out salmon fishing in Alaska, and what better way to spend a summer?

During the past week we’ve experienced both exceptional clear, sunny days and clothes-soaking downpours. Water levels have gone up and down with the weather, and we’ve attempted to find a pattern of where the salmon were located based on the current water conditions.

I don’t know how much I’ve actually figured out or how much some extreme luck has been helping my guests’ catch rates, but so far, so good. I’ve been continually questioning how long the coho salmon run will last, but a few new fish seem to be arriving on an almost daily basis. Because we know coho numbers are down all over Upper Cook Inlet drainages, I’ve been encouraging guests to keep the first couple coho they catch and call it a day after harvesting the first two coho they can get to the boat.

My hope is to provide a harvest opportunity without putting undue stress on an already taxed resource.

I hope to see you and others concerned for Mat-Su Valley salmon on Wednesday. Together, collective voices make a difference — take a stand for Valley salmon.

Andy Couch owns and operates Fishtale River Guides (fish4salmon.com) is a Mat-Su Anglers Club member (matsuanglers.org) and member of the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission.