Thankful thoughts for a holiday weekend

I want to take this opportunity to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving. I hope your day is quiet, peaceful and enjoyable in celebrating and being thankful for all the great things God has given each of us in this unique Alaskan society. I hope you are able to spend the day with family and friends, that you don’t eat too much turkey and fall asleep during the football games, and that you will pause for a moment and give thanks for our troops overseas who are not able to be with their families and friends on this holiday.

My wife and I will have our usual Thanksgiving. Debby will probably spent four to five hours getting the turkey cooked, the dressing, gravy, sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce ready and the pumpkin pie finished. I might spend 45 minutes getting my secret family recipe for green bean casserole mixed and baked. At my local church, they refer to this as “Howard’s bean dish,” but the last time I brought it for a potluck, it was all eaten with no complaints at all!

The Matanuska Susitna Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission will host a meeting with ADF&G to get an update of the 2013 fishery season and to discuss issues of concern related to fisheries management in Cook Inlet. At 6 p.m., Dec. 4 at the Central Fire Station 6-1 in Wasilla. The meeting is open to the public. Our Mat-Su legislators have been invited along with our borough assembly members.

The meeting will allow some public questions and comments but, I suspect, will be primarily used by the department to explain how and why the Northern District fisheries were managed the way they were in 2013. I’m sure one question will be what to expect in 2014, both in numbers of returning salmon into our Northern District, and changes in how the department plans to manage the Central District commercial fisheries to assure sufficient numbers of northern bound salmon actually make their way into their natal streams.

This meeting format has become a sort of tradition here in the Valley. I think this might be at least the fifth or sixth such meeting in so many years. The tone of the previous meetings has always been respectful but a little edgy. Salmon returns have been generally poor and declining during this timeframe and ADF&G has shown little initiative in taking any meaningful actions to reverse the trend in managing the mixed stock intercept commercial fisheries in the Central District. The brunt of the conservation burden has fallen almost totally on the in-river users of the Northern District salmon resources.

Another event fast becoming a tradition is the Grouse Ridge Rangers sponsored gun show scheduled for Dec. 7-8 at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla. The theme to this year’s gun show will be “Not Your Typical Gun Show!” The sponsors are looking for all types of Alaska outdoor vendors: fishing, hunting, archery, trapping, meat processors, camping, kayaking, guides, taxidermists, cooking, organizations, reloading supplies, ammo, lodges and remote real estate, shooting venues, people who teach concealed carry, ladies’ shooting, wildlife and Alaskana art, books; in short, if it’s done in the Alaska outdoors, they hope to have someone present to represent the activity. The cost of admission is $5. This could be a fun show to visit!

It’s that time of year and the increasing snowfall, in addition to being a problem driving, also pushes the moose into our Valley highway corridors. According to Fish and Game, the majority of moose road kills occur during the winter months because of the darkness, reduced visibility, and the presence of moose near the road systems. While returning home from a meeting the other night, I spotted a large bull only a few feet off the Big Lake cutoff. I flashed oncoming drivers down the road so they could slow down and, hopefully, avoid a nasty situation.

You can reduce moose/vehicle collisions by slowing down your speed on highways when visibility is reduced and by deliberately and continuously scanning for critters along both sides of the road. Increase the distance between you and the vehicle you’re following for more reaction time and watch for flickering headlights of oncoming traffic which could either signal a moose passing in front of them or them letting you know a moose has been spotted ahead of you. Let’s be safe while driving this winter!

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