Surge of salmon a surprise

I have never seen a so-called “late run” materialize the way this year’s king salmon have. It’s as if a magic wand was waved over the Northern District and salmon suddenly appeared. I’m not complaining — I just hate to admit being wrong.

Last week, I stated that, in my opinion, there would be major closures of Northern District king salmon fisheries due to a lack of fish. I said those closure announcements would probably begin around June 15.

I said that on Friday. Over the weekend and through Monday, 3,722 kings were counted past the Deshka weir, including 2008 fish on Sunday. That brought the total escapement to almost 6,000 fish, putting the return well ahead of last year’s poor showing and possibly headed toward a “normal” escapement.

Today marks the date when, historically, 50 percent of the Deshka king salmon escapement has been counted through the weir. By this point, the biologists should have the precision to project an overall escapement range and will make any adjustments deemed necessary to maintain the viability of the escapement. Given the way this year’s fish have returned, I hesitate to make any more predictions about what might happen next!

Even if this year’s return makes or exceeds the minimum escapement goal of 13,000 fish in the Deshka, the Northern District is still not necessarily out of the woods regarding king salmon run strengths for the next few years. The biologists will be sampling fish looking for the composition of the run by age-class. If this year’s run strength is based on mostly age-5 and older fish, we are in trouble for the next few years.

The flood of 2006 was thought to have devastated that broodyear of salmon. If those fish did survive, a strong showing of age-4 fish should be in the run composition. If there are few younger fish, then the flood did, indeed, severely impact that broodyear. That age-class information will not be available until later this year.

Let’s hope those age-4 fish are in the mix!

I was very surprised to see the Commercial Fisheries Division 2010 Upper Cook Inlet Salmon Fishery News Release #2 issued on June 10. That release announced the reduction of fishing time for the king salmon set gillnet commercial fishery scheduled for June 14 in the Northern District of Cook Inlet. The time was reduced from 12 to 6 hours. Quoting from the release: “In response to lagging Chinook salmon escapement in the Deshka River, Sport Fish Division has issued an emergency order (issued on June 9) prohibiting the use of bait in the lower portion of the Deshka River sport fishery effective…. Therefore it is warranted that the commercial fishery be restricted to 6 hours for the June 14 fishing period.”

If you recall the 2009 season, Sport Fish issued severe restrictions for the Deshka even before the season opened in an effort to make escapement. The Commercial Fisheries Division made no changes to the commercial fishing schedule and had no intention of making any changes. It took an emergency action by the Board of Fisheries (BOF) to restrict the fishing time of the first two commercial openings to attempt to share the “burden of conservation” among user groups, as required by the Sustainable Salmon Fisheries regulation. Even with that BOF action, the Deshka failed to make minimum escapement for the 2009 season.

This year, Sport Fish issues a bait restriction to slow down the fishery and Commercial Fisheries immediately follows with the order mentioned earlier. Why this sudden spirit of cooperation from Commercial Fisheries?

Don’t get me wrong — I am thrilled to see the Commercial Fisheries Division take a proactive management action that was not mandated in a management plan or required by an emergency BOF regulation or perhaps forced on them by legislative pressures. Are they beginning to actually manage the resource rather than just follow management plans and BOF mandates? Are they concerned that another poor return where they took no proactive management action might trigger major management plan rewrites or strict action plan mandates possibly forthcoming in this BOF Cook Inlet cycle? Or was there legislative pressure?

I don’t know. I would hope the Commercial Fisheries action was done out of a genuine resource concern and in cooperation with the Sport Fish Division, acting as a team in the management of our fisheries resources. At the 2008 Upper Cook Inlet BOF meeting, the board mandated to the department that its number one priority in managing Cook Inlet fish stocks was to make as many escapement goals as possible throughout the inlet. The board’s intent was that this directive applied to both lean and abundant return years. The Commercial Fisheries Division interpreted this directive to only apply to strong return years — I was told this directly. Let’s hope they now understand the BOF original intent.

I am encouraged by this joint action from the two fisheries management divisions. However, I must admit, one action doesn’t mean things have significantly changed in how Cook Inlet salmon stocks will be managed compared to how they have been historically managed. Time will tell if this marks a new era of cooperation and proactive management within the Commercial Fisheries Division or if it was merely an effort to head off potentially tougher mandates in how the division will function.

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.