ADFG TO TEST SELECTIVE SETNET GEAR AS KING NUMBERS PLUMMET

In early July, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game began what it called a “highly controversial” study of setnet harvest selectivity for Upper Cook Inlet sockeye and king salmon. Research was expected to continue through Aug. 10.

With Cook Inlet kings, particularly late-run fish that spawn in the Kenai River, falling to what has been deemed historically low numbers, ADFG had previously made the decision to close the Kenai River drainage to king fishing via a March 2 emergency order. Then on July 1, the state shut down the commercial gillnet fishery in the Kenai’s Upper Subdistrict. ADFG promised the state Board of Fisheries would review those moves at its meeting next February.

“To inform these discussions, (ADFG) has contracted with internationally renowned Kintama Research of Nanaimo, British Columbia, to run a test fishery using setnets modified to keep the net further off the bottom to advance the development of selective harvest strategies that may allow for the harvest of abundant sockeye while reducing the harvest of a weaker stock of Chinook,” an ADFG press release stated.

“If new net design works as the science says it should, this could be the successful way forward to allow an economic yield from the harvestable surplus of sockeye while ensuring Chinook conservation benefitting the fish populations and the sport anglers, commercial, and personal-use fishers,” added Kintama Research founder David Welch.

At a time when both sport and commercial fishermen are critical of state salmon mangement, ADFG commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang was optimistic the study could help what’s become a dire situation throughout Alaska’s Chinook range.

“This is only the first step in a possible three-year pilot program that, if successful, solves a decades-long struggle with a win-win for the resource and all the user groups as well,” Vincent-Lang said. “But make no mistake, at ADFG conservation is paramount. We will be watching closely with fingers crossed.”

Notable Number 9

By July 9, only nine chum salmon had been counted at the tower on the North River, a tributary of the Unalakleet River, which is on Norton Sound southeast of Nome. Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s most recent five-year average through that day had been 2,654 fish. On July 17, ADFG announced a closure for chum salmon sport fishing on the Unalakleet and Shaktoolik River drainages.

While a large chunk of the Lower 48 –not to mention other areas of the world –suffered from a brutal summer heat wave, Anchorage stayed cool with 25 different days of measurable precipitation at Ted Stevens International Airport, the most ever recorded between June 1 and July 12.

Seriously injured in the line of duty while a North Slope Borough police officer, Gwen Grimes (right) found new purpose to help fellow wounded law enforcement colleagues after appearing in the Discovery Channel series Naked and Afraid (GWEN GRIMES)

FROM THE ASJ ARCHIVES – AUGUST 2019