Northern District commercial fishing perspective

Every summer, one of the Valley’s prominent professional sport-fishing guides pens a weekly column in the Frontiersman updating anglers on fishing opportunities and conditions. He often also uses this opportunity to offer his opinion on why catching isn’t optimal and regularly pins the blame on the Northern District commercial fishermen and ADF&G’s failure to restrict them more. I am one of those commercial fishermen and I’m offering this article as a counter to the misinformation given about our in one of the most recent articles, “‘Management Trainwrecks’ . . .”. I’d also like to reasonably show that our small fishery can not affect sport-fishing success in any manner near to what this columnist would like everyone to believe and garner some support for the traditional livelihoods of Northern District commercial fishermen in the eyes of the public.

I have been set-netting for salmon near Moose Point on the Kenai Peninsula since I was a child with my family in the mid-80s. Mom and Dad began fishing there in 1970 and I have carried on with my wife and 3 kids taking over the operation about 10 years ago. In 2017 we began Rollman Family Salmon LLC to be able to sell our catch directly to the public and have since provided salmon to hundreds of families in the Valley, Anchorage and on the Peninsula.

Conflict between user groups is nothing new; sport and commercial fisher-folks have been accusing each other of getting more than they deserve forever. The question is, is each group being given a reasonable opportunity? The author claims that our opportunity is “unfair”, saying things like “they are allowed to harvest salmon without limit.” I’ll provide a handful of facts to correct these assertions and balance the conversation around reasonable opportunity.

First and foremost, there is one primary, simple and sobering piece of information the public needs to know about our fishery with regard to reasonable opportunity. Here it is: Northern District commercial fishermen, at the full extent of their legal ability, are allowed to use three nets, each 210 feet long, during two fishing periods per week - Mondays and Thursdays, 7 AM to 7 PM. That is all we are allowed, unless given extra time by Emergency Order, which has happened only twice in the last 35 years.

In other words, at full strength, we get to try to harvest salmon for 24 hours per week, or the equivalent of one out of seven days, and that’s when the weather allows, the tide is in, and driftwood doesn’t prevent us from fishing. This means fish get to swim freely through Northern Cook Inlet a minimum of six out of seven days per week, 1/7 is hardly an unreasonable or “unfair” opportunity. The article asks for “setting commercial regulations at a more realistic level.” Is this level not realistic? Common sense should tell anyone that when fish are allowed to freely pass 6/7 of the time, our small fishery of less than 100 permits – even when fishing full-strength (which we often are not) – can not consequentially impact runs to Northern District streams. I could rest my case there, but if you’re curious to learn more about our fishery, read on.

Speaking of those 100 or so permits, they are spread out over 100 miles of coastline in a body of water that averages nearly 15 miles across. Our nets are needles in a huge haystack which the fish only get to look for twice a week for 12 hours.

And speaking of Northern District streams, here are some more pertinent facts for consideration: Our fishery catches salmon going to over 1000 different streams – not just favorite sport fishing locations like Deshka, Little Su and Jim Creek. According to the Anadromous Waters Catalog there are over 600 different streams in which coho salmon are present in the Northern District. Most of these 600-plus streams are in pristine watersheds that rarely, if ever get tracked by a human foot and only about 6 enumerated for escapement by ADF&G. The only streams with salmon-counting weirs for Coho are the Deshka River, the Little-Su, Fish Creek and Jim Creek. That’s it. These are four of the most heavily trafficked and fished in streams in the entire Mat-Su and yet they are utilized as the primary index for the health of coho runs throughout all of Northern Cook Inlet. When there aren’t enough fish counted in even two of these weirs, regardless of what may actually be happening at the hundreds of other streams, commercial fishing in the Northern District usually gets restricted or closed.

At the time of writing this article, we have been closed by emergency order for 2 weeks because of low coho passage at the Deshka and Little-Su weirs while Jim Creek and Fish Creek have met their minimum escapement goals. Sport fishing for silvers at Deshka and LIttle-Su is also closed, appropriately. But, anglers can still bag 1 silver on many upper Susitna tributaries and Fish Creek. That is opportunity being given to sport fishermen while commercial fishermen have no opportunity. But don’t read me wrong - I’m not saying I think we should be fishing right now. If it is a bad year for coho, which it seems like it is, then we should all be closed. We commercial fishermen are happy to share in the burden of conservation for the sake of the resource - I applaud ADF&G for sound science and doing what is best for the fish. Conservation of the resource is of paramount importance and each user group should bear that burden equitably.

Another way the author spreads misinformation is through his rhetoric. One of his favorite adjectives for our fishery is “liberal”. He used a variant of it seven times in the “Management Trainwrecks” article alone. The average reader would think from his language that this meant we were allowed to fish extra time or get to use more than three nets. On the contrary, for the last 20 years or so, every season for five consecutive fishing periods during the peak of the red run, ADF&G has reduced our number of nets from three per-permit down to one. It seems the author has gotten used to this annual restriction on our ability to remain viable (many have quit over the years because with one net they can’t make it pay) and in his mind our restrictions have become codified. So, when in more recent years the Department has relaxed the restriction to two nets in certain areas at certain times he asserts that we are being “liberalized”, propagandizing in his column that the Department has “doubled” our nets. The truth is that we were still being restricted to ⅔ of our regular gear, and still only fishing two days per week. Those are the facts. Now for a little perspective from the commercial fisherman’s side.

We all like to recall the glory-days of last century when nearly every Alaska stream was teeming with salmon. Unfortunately for all of us, this is not our current reality. Everyone wants to know how we got here and who is responsible. It is always easiest to point fingers while not examining one’s self, which is exactly the approach of the author. Undoubtedly, the influx of human beings into south-central Alaska and our activities here are the culprit. Which specific activities? - that’s the question. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has proven to be a phenomenal manager of salmon runs, optimizing returns when other variables are kept to a minimum - Bristol Bay has been a model for the world in successful salmon stock management. Consider for a moment if the Cook Inlet region had never been populated by hundreds of thousands of humans and there was only a well-managed commercial fishery here. I believe our incredible ecosystems would be producing salmon on par with Bristol Bay. But, with people abounding in watersheds and multiple user groups clamoring for salmon stocks that overlap each other in the Inlet and the rivers, there are more variables than Fish & Game managers can be expected to overcome. Judging from the blame he places on ADF&G for the lack of salmon in the most heavily fished sport fishing streams in the Valley it seems the author expects the Department to wave its magic wand and make more salmon appear. A discussion of human-induced deterioration of spawning stream habitat must be on the table. The problem of over-loving salmon streams is real. Rubber tire particle run-off contamination is a science proven problem for salmon reproduction. We must safeguard habitat so that we don’t turn into the Lower 48. And, maybe enhancement/stocking programs are needed on the most popular sport-fish streams to offset low production and increase sport-harvest – stocking has produced bountiful sport harvests at Ship Creek and Eklutna so far this year. These are all action items.

I hope the next time you read one of these weekly fishing reports you remember the information presented here (1/7, 6/7) and aren’t fooled by the rhetoric into thinking that the Northern District commercial salmon fishery is getting anything but a reasonable opportunity to make a living.

Trevor Rollman is a husband, father, former resident of Wasilla, current resident of Soldotna and second generation set-netter on the east side of Cook-Inlet’s Northern District.