Public gets chance to listen during fisheries debate

Today at 1 p.m., the Alaska Board of Fisheries will be holding a public-listen-only teleconference to deliberate and decide the outcome of two board-generated proposals originating from last month’s March meeting in Anchorage.

These proposals came about as a result of two emergency petitions submitted by folks interested in correcting what they perceived as regulatory mistakes.

The first proposal concerns increasing the daily sportsfishing bag limit for black cod from two fish to four fish, and eliminating the season bag limit for residents. Earlier this year at the Sitka BOF meeting, the board instituted daily bag, possession, and annual limits on sportsfishing for black cod. No limits had been in place prior to this action.

The thinking behind this imposing of limits on a previously unregulated fishery was the fact that the commercial black cod fishery had seen a steady decline in the allocated catch because the population numbers of black cod have shown a steady decline over the last decade. The guided sportsfishing industry is growing significantly in Southeast Alaska and some of the guides were targeting black cod for their predominantly non-resident clients.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has no idea of how many black cod are being caught in the guided sports fisheries in Southeast. A prudent step would be to get a handle on the sport-caught numbers of black cod. This was done by imposing limits and requiring the guides to log and report their catches of black cod.

The initial limits set were four daily, eight in possession and twelve fish for the season (4-8-12). The last action by the board at the end of the Sitka meeting was a reconsideration motion which ultimately ended up with 2-4-8 limits. In hindsight, if I knew then what I know now, I would not have supported a reconsideration vote. A petition from one of the guides submitted after the March meeting asked the board to bump the daily bag back up to four fish, leaving the other numbers, four in possession and eight annual, alone.

Another petitioner asked that the annual limits be removed for residents, since the initial reason for the imposed limits, as discussed during the Sitka meeting, was the significant growth in guided, non-resident sports catches of black cod. When the limits were instituted, however, residents were not exempted from the regulation on annual catch.

This black cod proposal has no practical effect on our area, but the second board-generated proposal does. This second proposal asks for an increase in size limits, numbers of lines for icefishing, and other factors to encourage the taking and retention of northern pike out of the Alexander Lake system.

Because of the illegal introduction of northern pike into our Southcentral waters and their establishment in the Alexander Lake system, the stock of king salmon returning to Alexander Creek and the lake is nearing extinction. Northern pike are major predators of juvenile salmon and have done extensive damage to the Alexander Lake king salmon stocks. All in-river use of Alexander Creek king salmon was closed at the February, 2008, Upper Cook Inlet BOF meeting.

This total in-river closure for king salmon in the Alexander Lake system has resulted in the closure of some fishing lodges on Alexander Creek and the loss of as much as a few million dollars over time to the local economy because of the lost salmon fishing opportunities.

Obviously, for the future of the Alexander system king salmon stocks, major efforts need to be directed at eradicating as many pike as quickly as possible in that system to save the few remaining returning fish and allow the population to rebuild.

A third board-generated proposal was not accepted at the March meeting. That proposal would have addressed the other facet of the problem — the Northern District set gillnet commercial fishery, which constitutes the only remaining human-induced mortality on the Alexander Lake king salmon stocks.

That failed proposal asked that the Northern District set gillnet fishery not be opened to fish for king salmon until the first Monday on or after June 10. By then, the bulk of the Alexander system king salmon would be in-river and beyond the reach of the commercial nets.

The board failed to accept that proposal on a 2-5 vote. Those voting against accepting the proposal said that ADF&G already had direction from the board to manage to meet escapement goals and the authority to close all or part of the Northern District fishery for conservation reasons. Others were afraid of the political fallout from a Cook Inlet commercial fishery closure coming from an out-of-cycle board proposal.

Since the March meeting, the Sport Fish Division of ADF&G has announced a significant partial closure of the Deshka River, further restricting in-river use of Susitna River Drainage king salmon. As I write this, I have heard nothing indicating that the Commercial Fisheries Division has any plans to close any openings in the Northern District set gillnet fishery, scheduled to open on May 25.

If you want to listen to the meeting, the Palmer Fish and Game office is one of the scheduled “listening” sites. I think this teleconference will be interesting to hear.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by e-mailing sports@frontiersman.com.