State can’t ignore salmon emergency

I must admit that dishing out an occasional “I told you so” gives me a warm feeling inside.

On rare occasions, I hope what I think might happen is wrong and that a better outcome will occur. For this particular dilemma, I’ll skip the first item and lament the second, even though I was correct. This 2012 king salmon sport fishing season is the worst in memory, and maybe ever!

This past Monday saw the closure of every king salmon fishery in the Valley except the Eklutna Tailrace. King returns to the Northern District have been worse than expected, and we’re not alone. The Kenai River early run king salmon fishery has been closed and the Kasilof River has no-bait restrictions. The Ninilchik and Anchor rivers, and Deep and Stariski Creeks have also been closed or severely restricted, including the saltwater closure within one mile of the mouths of these streams to the retention of a king salmon.

These king salmon sport fishery closures will have major impacts on both the borough’s and the region’s economy for 2012. I suspect some sport fish guides will go out of business, fishing tackle sales will be well below average and service companies like gas stations, restaurants, hotels and bed and breakfasts will also suffer. Places like Susitna Landing, Talkeetna Boat Launch, Deshka Landing and the Little Susitna Public Use Facility will all take hits in user numbers for the year.

My wife and I are longtime regulars at Susitna Landing. That facility has been our riverboat launch point since I first bought a boat and has been our preferred camping facility since we got the motor home and started overnight camping while fishing. I know business will fall off dramatically if folks can’t go fishing. Most locals, the main supporters of these Valley facilities, won’t launch boats or spend a weekend camping out if there is no fishing. These boat launch/camping facilities live and die by how well the salmon runs come in.

A long-term repercussion of these weak king returns is that even after the runs come back (hopefully) and fishing returns to the “glory days” levels of the early 2000s, people, especially nonresidents, will be slow to return to the waters of the Northern District to sport fish. That means a lot of lost economic opportunity for sport fish-related businesses even when things become good. It takes time to rebuild a shattered reputation.

Talk has started about asking the Alaska Board of Fisheries for an out-of-cycle hearing to address the poor king salmon situation in Cook Inlet. If the BOF agrees to such a meeting, I suspect its members would want to address the king salmon situation statewide as well. We’ve heard of the civil disobedience by residents in western Alaska to the order closing subsistence fishing in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. The king runs in Southeast are worse than forecast as well.

I think a strong case can be made to have a special meeting, but fisheries politics can influence these things. The probability of having a meeting is too close to call. I’m sure the commercial trawl fishing industry will lobby against a meeting. Many folks see that industry’s king salmon bycatch situation as a major, if not the major, contributor to the poor king returns statewide. I’m sure the industry does not agree. I think it is a contributing factor but whether it is the problem is not proven.

The Northern District already has six king salmon stock-of-concern-designated populations. I suspect we could easily have twice as many by the next regularly scheduled BOF meeting in 2014. Ignoring this dilemma until the regular cycle meeting would be a public relations blunder of major proportions. How would that look to the world in light of our best management claims?

Last week, I mentioned my dilemma regarding possibly buying a truck. I promised to tell you if things changed. No, I haven’t figured everything out yet, but I fell into a deal on a truck with everything I wanted, and then some, except for the full-size bed. I bought it.

I’m now in the process of getting all the stuff installed on the truck to make it useful for me. It’s not new, but a ¾ ton, four-wheel drive, extended cab diesel with the Allison transmission and less than 50,000 miles in a price range I could afford was too much to pass on. I’m broke, but I’m happy!

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.