Valley feels impact of BOF decisions

ANCHORAGE — Salmon runs returning to the Northern District of Cook Inlet were given a significant boost because of recent action by the Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) at its Upper Cook Inlet regulatory meeting.

Two major changes in how salmon returning to the Northern District are to be managed were made by the board. The first involves reinstituting language into commercial fisheries management plans that gives priority status to king and coho salmon in Cook Inlet. These two species are now to be managed primarily for the benefit of sport and guided sport anglers. Fisheries managers will now be required to manage a commercial fishery to minimize the number of king or coho salmon caught in commercial nets.

The second change involves restructuring the Central District Drift Gillnet Management Plan to mandate three restricted openings in July to move northern-bound salmon through the commercial fishery. The old plan had provisions for up to two restricted openings allowing commercial fishing in a corridor extending three miles from shore and/or in Drift Area No. 1, which encompasses about half of Cook Inlet. Allowing fishing in Drift Area No. 1 was not considered a restriction by Northern District representatives.

Over the past decade, when the fleet was allowed to fish only in the three-mile corridor for one of the two openings, the Northern District barely made minimum sockeye escapement numbers. When the fleet was allowed to fish in the corridor and Drift Area No. 1, those minimum escapements were never reached, said Andy Couch, a sportsfishing guide and representative of the Matanuska-Susitna Fish and Game Advisory Committee. The decision on how restrictive to make these openings was left to the discretion of fisheries managers and corridor-only fishing periods were rarely used.

Board changes to the Drift Plan mandate when the openings will hapen and significantly restrict areas in Cook Inlet where the drift fleet can fish during these openings. Drift Area No. 1 is no longer allowed during the restricted openings. The fleet will be restricted to an expanded corridor along the east side of Cook Inlet. These restricted commercial openings are expected to pulse more sockeye, coho, chum and pink salmon through the Central District and into Valley rivers and streams.

These changes were made because the Susitna/Yentna sockeye populations have been in a “stock of concern” status since the last BOF meeting in 2008 and have continued to decline even when the management portions of the action plan developed at that meeting and designed to bring the stocks back to a healthy status were implemented.

Six king salmon stocks were declared stocks of concern at this recent BOF meeting and action plans were developed and approved. The board-passed management section of the plan is designed to reduce fishing mortality on the stocks. The Theodore, Lewis, Chuitna and Beluga rivers on the west side of northern Cook Inlet were closed to all sport fishing and statistical areas 247-30 and 247-20 to a wood chip dock (beach areas in front of the four rivers) were closed to commercial setnet fishing for king salmon. Goose Creek, a tributary to the Susitna River located along the Parks Highway, was also closed to sport fishing for kings. The closure of the Alexander Creek king salmon fishery was continued.

Other components of the king salmon action plan include closing the last weekend of the sportsfishing season and requiring that virtually all king salmon fishing be closed between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. To combat the invasion of northern pike into many of the area’s best salmon systems, the board passed regulations that open pike fishing year-around with no bag limits and expand the use of spear and archery gear as legal harvest methods.

Late Saturday afternoon, the board also adopted stricter definitions of what constitutes a commercial fishing period. This was deemed necessary to eliminate confusion in making a determination of when to close the Central District commercial setnet fishery season and move the drift fleet into more restricted fishing areas in an orderly manner. This process of closing the commercial fisheries is known as the “1 percent Rule” and can have significant bearing on how many coho salmon reach Northern District waters in early August.

No changes were made to the existing dipnet fishery regulations in Cook Inlet. The board rejected all proposals submitted by commercial interests looking to reduce time, bag limits or both for personal-use fishers. The board did lower the trigger for opening Fish Creek to dipnetting by 20,000 fish. This could mean opening a personal-use fishery perhaps a week earlier than what was previously allowed. A youth-only weekend rod and reel fishery was also approved for Fish Creek.

In other actions, the board increased the daily bag limit for coho salmon to three fish for waters on the west side of Cook Inlet and for portions of the Susitna River drainage. A specific regulation was adopted clarifying that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has the emergency order authority to raise or lower the bag limit of coho salmon based on abundance. An area around the mouth of Willow Creek was put off-limits to boat anglers and continuing to fish for coho salmon after retaining a bag limit on the Little Susitna was prohibited.

For a complete list of actions taken by the board and any explanation of the actions, contact the ADF&G office in Palmer, either in person or by phone at 746-6300.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.