Salmon forecast remains poor

WASILLA — How the state Department of Fish and Game managed the 2012 salmon season, and how the agency plans to manage the resource in 2013, drew about 80 Valley and Anchorage area residents to recent meeting at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center.

The event began with Rep. Mark Neuman explaining the purpose of the Nov. 15 meeting.

“The department will also address their answers to nine written questions submitted to them prior to the meeting concerning specific aspects of the management of the Cook Inlet fishery in 2012,” he said.

Several state legislators and one Mat-Su Borough Assembly member were among the group assembled to hear Fish and Game’s take on the 2012 salmon season in Cook Inlet.

Sam Ivey, area management biologist for the state Sport Fish Division in Palmer, led off the department presentation.

“The king salmon populations in the Northern District have been on a downward trend since 2007,” he said.

Ivey explained that 17 stocks of king salmon are monitored for escapements and that only one of those stocks is counted using a weir.

“The other 16 stocks are counted using a one-pass aerial count from a helicopter, and these counts serve to indicate trends in returning numbers of fish as opposed to being total counts of fish in the system,” he said.

Ivey said that only five of the 17 monitored king salmon stocks made their minimum escapement goals in 2011.

“We thought the 2012 returns would be a little stronger than 2011,” he said, “but the runs turned out to be weaker and only four of the 17 systems made their 2012 escapement goals.”

When asked about probable restrictions for the 2013 king season, Ivey said that even tighter restrictions will likely apply.

Bob Clark, senior fisheries scientist for the Sport Fish Division, said the causes for the poor king salmon returns are largely unknown and that in order to learn more about Valley stocks, four more weirs will be installed and monitored in the Valley, in addition to the Deshka and Little Susitna weirs.

The 2012 coho season was equally bad in the Valley, Ivey said while explaining the history of how the Little Susitna River was managed for coho in 2011 and 2012, including monitoring poor catch rates and imposing early season closures both years.

Pat Shields, the area management biologist for the Commercial Fisheries Division in Soldotna, was next up. He explained the unprecedented closure of the East Side set gillnet fishery due to poor returns on the late run king salmon to the Kenai River and the subsequent extensive use of the drift gillnet fleet to harvest sockeye returning to both the Kenai and Kasilof rivers.

“The primary use of the drift fleet to harvest sockeye also resulted in a greater catch of coho,” Shields said. “We plan to be much more vigilant in monitoring the coho catch next season.”

The consensus was that 2012 was a weak return year for coho in the inlet, but the tone of a few questions asked of Shields indicated that audience members viewed the way the commercial fishery was managed, resulting in the interception of northern bound coho by the drift fleet, as contributing to the even poorer returns to the Northern District.

Shields received some recognition for having, arguably, the toughest fisheries management position in the state, but also was called out on a comment he made during his presentation. While explaining the catch by the drift fleet during a couple of openings in late July, Shields stated that about 750,000 sockeyes were harvested and only about 20,000 coho.

“Any manager will tell you catching 750,000 sockeye and only 20,000 coho is a pretty good trade-off,” he said.

An audience member questioned the good trade-off concept, saying, “Catching 20,000 coho in two commercial openings is not considered a good trade from our position here in the Northern District, given our poor coho returns area-wide.”

The meeting was cordial, but most attendees’ take home information was that poor returns of both king and coho salmon have dominated recent years in the Valley, and these poor return trends appear likely to continue into the future for all five salmon species.

Legislators attending the meeting included Reps. Neuman, Shelley Hughes and Lynn Gattis, and state Sens. Charlie Huggins and Mike Dunleavy. Noel Wood represented the Mat-Su Borough Assembly. Rod Arno of the Alaska Outdoor Council and Phil Cutler of the Alaska Sportsfishing Association also attended. There also were representatives from the Mat Valley Fish and Game Advisory Committee, the Su Valley AC, the Mt. Yenlo AC and the Anchorage AC as well. The meeting was co-hosted by the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission, along with Rep. Neuman.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Leave him a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.