Spring is in the air for lovers of the outdoors

It’s Friday morning and a couple of things important to Valley outdoors enthusiasts will either already be in progress or are set to begin in a few hours. The Mat-Su Outdoorsman Show opens its doors today at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla, and the statewide finfish meeting of the Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) will probably be completing committee hearings and beginning deliberations on proposals at the Hilton Hotel in Anchorage.

Let’s start with the outdoorsman show. A special section about the event was included in Tuesday’s Frontiersman. That section contained all the seminar topics and when they are scheduled for presentation. A list of all the vendors and booth holders and their respective locations on the sports center floor was also included. I appreciate that feature since it helps me find specific vendors or booths I plan to visit.

There are several seminars I hope to attend. I say “hope,” since I will be helping staff the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission (MSBFWC) table. Many folks have not heard that this commission was formally renamed a year or so ago by the borough assembly to more accurately reflect the duties and function of the commission. The former name of this body was the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Sportsmen’s Committee and is so referred to in the listing of vendors/booths in the section. For future reference, we are the MSBFWC and will be so identified at the show.

The doors open today at noon and the show runs until 7 p.m. this evening. Tomorrow’s hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Sunday the show runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. If you get a chance to stop by the booth, say hi. If I’m not there, chances are I’m either taking in a seminar presentation or I’m wandering the floor taking in the show.

The reason I figure I’ll be spending a fair amount of time at the MSBFWC booth this weekend is that the BOF is currently meeting in Anchorage at the Hilton Hotel. That meeting is scheduled to run through Sunday. A couple of the other commission members are maintaining a presence at that meeting because there are several proposals affecting Valley fisheries that are being deliberated.

The MSBFWC only has seven members. With two at the BOF meeting, three others will likely be manning their own booths here at the show. That leaves me and our borough assembly member, Jim Colver, as the remaining free members. I can only imagine how busy Jim is this time of year with borough business locally and with the Legislature, so that’s why you might see me at the booth.

The BOF meeting is addressing several topics important to Valley residents. One is allowing an exception to the “no felt soles” regulation that went into effect in 2012. For some disabled anglers, wading to fish can only safely be accomplished using felt-soled wading shoes or hip boots. The proposal asks for an exemption as long as the boots have never been used outside Alaska. The entire purpose of the ban is to minimize the spread of detrimental exotic species of plants and animals in Alaska’s waterways.

Another proposal asks that certain commonly used fisheries terms be specifically defined in regulation. If you’ve had much exposure to the Cook Inlet “fish wars,” you already know that common terms have different meanings depending on the agenda of the group using the term. For purposes of clarity in discussions, it’s always helpful that when you refer to a spade, everybody knows exactly what that spade looks like and what it does.

A couple of other proposals refer to the allocation criteria the BOF is required to consider when establishing regulations that allocate the fishery resource to different user groups. Current regulations require the BOF members to consider the criteria, but there is nothing specifying how to assign the level of importance of each, or even whether all the various criteria are even considered by each board member in their respective voting decisions.

The final BOF decisions on these and other proposals at this statewide finfish meeting will be considered in a future column.

Another item to mark on your calendar is the 21st annual Sportsmen’s Banquet and Fundraiser for the Ruffed Grouse Society scheduled for April 13 at the Anchorage Hilton Hotel. Get the details from the full-page ad in the Mat-Su Outdoorsman Show section.

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.