Mat-Su outdoors: The lack of talk is a concern

This past Wednesday, my day began earlier than normal. I left my house in Big Lake at 6 a.m. to begin the 200-mile round-trip drive to the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood to attend the first day of the Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) workshop meeting. I met Andy Couch at the park-and-ride lot across Truck Road from Mat-Su Regional Medical Center and we rode to the meeting together.

Andy and I are both members of the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission (MSBFWC) and were representing the commission at the meeting. I figured that more than two-and-a-half hours should allow us enough time to reach Girdwood for the scheduled 8:30 a.m. start of the meeting. We actually arrived about a half-hour early, much to my surprise.

Our interest, specifically, was to listen to the hoped-for stock of concern (SOC) discussion we had asked the board to consider holding at this meeting, and to meet and lobby the newer members of the board about our concerns regarding Northern District salmon stocks. As it turned out, all the BOF did was listen to the SOC recommendations made by the Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) for the various areas where meetings were scheduled for this upcoming cycle. There were only a few recommendations actually put forth.

The fact no discussion was held isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Based on the SOC recommendations ADF&G made (or didn’t make), the first real opportunity for a serious discussion of stock-of-concern issues I’ve mentioned before will happen at the Upper Cook Inlet (UCI) meeting in Anchorage, beginning in late January 2014.

We were able to have lunch with Fritz Johnson from Dillingham and Reed Morisky from Fairbanks. Both of these gentlemen are new or relatively new members of the BOF and neither had participated in BOF meetings regarding Cook Inlet issues. We thought this would be a good opportunity to begin presenting some UCI issues to these two to familiarize and help them make thoughtful and informed decisions regarding these issues.

I hadn’t intended the entire lunch to be a “lobbying” time because, having been a BOF member myself, I know how nice it is to have some “down time” during a BOF meeting. However, both of these guys were interested in some of my thoughts and experiences from my BOF days and asked questions. Being a shy, quiet person with no strong opinions (if you believe that, I have some swamp property you may be interested in). I answered their questions and told a couple of humorous stories from my BOF experiences. I also told them to form their own opinions and develop their own lists of who to trust for information and to what extent as they study the overwhelming amount of data they will be receiving from all sources for each BOF meeting.

During the meeting, I was bothered by the fact that the ADF&G presentation of UCI stock-of-concern recommendations discussed Jim Creek coho issues and the fact that the department had considered nominating that stock, but then decided against doing so. ADF&G then proceeded to finish by saying no other coho stocks in the Northern District warranted SOC consideration.

I have mentioned here before that the Little Susitna coho stock had missed four consecutive years of minimum escapement goals and made the most recent 2013 goal. ADF&G didn’t even mention the Little Susitna stock in its written or oral reports. I was hoping a board member would ask why, but that question apparently got lost in the shuffle.

On the lunch break, I raised this point with Bob Clark, ADF&G’s Sport Fish Division chief fisheries scientist. He acknowledged that ADF&G had considered the Little Su coho but, for several reasons, decided not to nominate it for SOC status. He also acknowledged that the Little Su coho stock should have been mentioned in the report as having been looked at. In my opinion, any stock that missed four out of five years’ minimum escapement goals and fails to be recommended for SOC status should have, at least, been mentioned as receiving internal discussion within the department.

One final thought — the BOF chair mentioned to both Andy and I that he hoped to see a strong turnout of Northern District angler constituents at the UCI meeting. He’s looking for the maximum input possible from all stakeholders at that meeting to facilitate the board making the best possible decisions on issues in the always-contentious Cook Inlet salmon “wars.”

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.