Preparing for an important fisheries meeting

The deadline for submitting written comments to the Board of Fisheries to be included in the board books passed on Feb. 9. However, you can still submit written comments for the upcoming Upper Cook Inlet meeting right up to and through the beginning of the meeting on Feb. 23. If you haven’t done so yet, I would strongly encourage you to do so.

Why all this “pushing” to get you to comment? There are about a dozen proposals asking the board to effectively reverse all their actions for the past six years on trying to move more northern bound coho and sockeye salmon through the Central District commercial drift net fishery. The actions taken by the board during that timeframe established a conservation corridor up the center of Cook Inlet to move the fish through. Expanded harvest zones were established along the east side of CI where commercial drifters could target the robust Kenai and Kasilof sockeye stocks while minimizing the interception of northern bound fish.

Commercial fishing in the conservation corridor is significantly restricted over “the old days” while lots of extra fishing time has been granted in the harvest zones. The drifters have, for decades, said they just wanted to target the Kenai and Kasilof stocks. This conservation corridor/harvest zone structure of fisheries management does exactly that.

However, this new approach does have additional cost in requiring more time fishing compared to intercepting mixed stocks of fish in the center of the inlet. The drifters don’t like this and want to reverse the management to allow them to intercept any and all stocks of fish moving up in the conservation corridor.

So how have the various stocks of salmon been affected over the past five years by this new approach? The Northern District has seen improved escapements of northern bound coho salmon and, in 2015, the only meeting of escapement goals for the Susitna-Yentna sockeye stocks since ADF&G changed the way they measure Susitna escapements back in 2009.

While we’re seeing somewhat improved sockeye returns and noticeably greater coho runs, even with overall poorer coho returns in recent years, the drifters have had some of their better harvests in the past fifty years! The last couple of years saw a poor market for CI fish because of packed processors’ warehouses from the bumper harvest in 2014. In 2016, ADF&G overestimated the harvestable portions of both the Kenai and Kasilof sockeye returns and drifters didn’t catch as many fish as they had anticipated, even with significantly more fishing time than the management plan specified.

For the personal use group, there are 14 proposals directly addressing that activity. Most of them seek to restrict the PU fishery in some manner, such as restricting how a boat may be used or the web size in the net. If you have ever, or intend to in the future, participate in these PU fisheries, you might want to tell the board you don’t want to see any changes which would negatively impact the fishery.

Your comments on the conservation corridor/harvest zone proposals could be something as simple as stating you don’t support any changes which would negatively affect how this management approach is working.

If you can, personally attending the meeting and presenting your thoughts on the various proposals would be the best possible way to support and represent our Northern District. Numbers matter and the more Northern District folks and written comments presented, the stronger our position will be in asking the board to protect the beneficial changes we have recently seen in Northern District salmon returns.

On another note, an NRA-NMLRA muzzleloading basic course is scheduled at the Mat-Valley Sportsman’s Range for Friday, Feb. 17 from 6:00 to 10:00 pm and Saturday, Feb 18 from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. Cost is $50 for range members and $60 for non-members. Sign-up deadline is Feb. 14, 2017. Contact Rob Bargewell, 907-355-2952 or chiefW5@mtaonline.net.

This is a hands-on shooting course using rifle, handgun, and shotgun muzzleloading blackpowder firearms. The shotgun portion will be somewhat limited because of the physical setup of the outdoor Matanuska Valley shooting range.

I’ve taken this course in the late 90’s at the Rabbit Creek range in Anchorage. It was a lot of fun and even with decades of blackpowder experience at that time, I still learned a few new things. This is NOT the ADF&G Hunter Education course, so don’t expect that certification. It is, however, a course designed to teach you how to safely handle and shoot muzzleloading firearms.