Fishery Board Hears Proposals on Finfish

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Created on Wednesday, 05 February 2025 13:06

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By ANNA LAFFREY
Ketchikan Daily News
Southeast Alaska fishermen filled the Ted Ferry Civic Center in Ketchikan on Tuesday to ask the seven-member Alaska Board of Fisheries to grant them opportunities in state-managed fisheries for all “finfish” species, namely Chinook salmon and herring, that sustain communities, industries and cultural traditions regionwide.
The Board on Tuesday heard more than seven hours of public testimony regarding fisheries for salmon and trout species, as well as herring, that are the subject of 87 proposals before the Board in Session Two of its 13-day regulatory meeting
Eighty-four stakeholders — including commercial fishermen, seafood processors, sport fishing guides and lodge owners, fishery organization leaders, government representatives and harvesters — spoke on Tuesday as the finfish session got underway.
Thirty-five people gave testimonies Monday afternoon, and 26 people were called to speak on Wednesday from the Board’s list of 145 total individuals who signed up to speak on finfish harvest rules.
Following public testimonies on Wednesday, Board members addressed “action plans” for Chinook stocks of concern on the Taku and King Salmon Rivers.
The Board is then scheduled to commence town-hall-style “committee of the whole” proceedings Wednesday for the first “group” of Session Two proposals, all of which deal with Chinook management.
Board deliberations on Chinook management are set to follow on Thursday.
On Friday, the Board is set to work on “action plans” for Hugh Smith Lake sockeye salmon and Northern Southeast Outside chum salmon.
Then, the Board will hold a Friday “committee” hearing, followed by deliberations, for commercial, sport, and personal use salmon and trout regulations, and salmon enhancement-related proposals, including a proposal (156) that would “reduce the permitted egg take of pink and chum salmon of each applicable Southeast hatchery for pink and chum salmon by 25%.”
Committee proceedings and deliberations on all Southeast herring fishery proposals are scheduled for Saturday, per a draft agenda updated on Monday.

Chinook talks begin
Eighteen of the 87 proposals before the Board this week address the allocation of migratory Chinook salmon between the hook-and-line commercial troll fishery and the resident / nonresident sport fishery in Southeast Alaska within the “all-gear catch limit” that’s set annually according to the U.S./Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty.
Under the Alaska statute 5 AAC 29.060 (Allocation of king salmon in the Southeast Alaska-Yakutat area), the commercial gillnet and seine fisheries are allocated approximately 7% of that “all-gear catch” treaty limit, and the remaining catch is split 80/20 between the commercial troll and sport fisheries, respectively.
Sport fishing for Chinook is managed under the Southeast Alaska King Salmon Management Plan, which the Board first adopted in 1992 “to allow uninterrupted sport fishing in the marine waters for king salmon while not exceeding the allocation, and minimize regulatory restrictions on resident anglers.”
Most of the 18 “KSMP and allocation” proposals to the Board address a Chinook management dispute primarily between the commercial troll fleet and the charter/sport fleet that tracks back to the Board’s 2022 meeting.
During the last Southeast regulatory meeting in Anchorage in 2022, the Board adopted modifications to the KSMP that allow for underages or overages in the sport fishery harvest to benefit, or be docked from, the commercial troll fishery allocation.
Under the KSMP that the Board approved in 2022, sport overages in August of 2024 triggered one of the first (resident and nonresident) sport fishery closures in history.
Also in August of 2024, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced that, given sport overages, ADF&G could not open a second summer Chinook troll opener. In 2023, sport overages restricted the August troll opener to one 24-hour period.
However, limited-harvest fisheries in September of both 2023 and 2024 allowed trollers to target a few thousand Chinook that remained in the net fishery allocation.
About half of the 119 testimonies that the Board heard on Monday and Tuesday addressed the effects of the Board’s changes to the KSMP in 2022. Roughly 30 of those testimonies came from people engaged in the nonresident sport fishing industry; roughly 30 came from stakeholders to the commercial troll fishery.
Only two of the seven current Board members served on the Board in 2022. 
Given losses since 2022, many local trollers and resident sport fishermen this week are backing proposals to the Board that would reinstate “in-season” management to keep sport harvest within its allocation, and prevent late-season restrictions on resident sport anglers and trollers.
Meanwhile, nonresident sport and charter fishery representatives are asking the Board to maintain stable, predictable harvest opportunities for the visitor industry via in-season allocation transfers between the sport and troll fisheries, or by allocating more chiok to the sport fishery to provide more opportunity for resident and nonresident anglers.
 Nonresidents harvested 74% and 72% of the overall Southeast Chinook sport harvest in 2022 and 2023, respectively, and have taken about 68% on average over 10 recent years, according to ADF&G data.
McKinley Kellogg, whose family operates Chinook Shores Lodge in Ketchikan, spoke on Monday about the importance of the guided nonresident sport fishing and lodge industry in Southeast.
Kellogg said that the industry provides “stable job opportunities for young people,” including many “local kids” who can gain “customer service, sales and networking” experience and “log sea time to become charter captains themselves some day.”
“The growing industry is a good thing,” Kellogg said Monday.
On Monday and Tuesday, many sport industry representatives who fish out of Sitka, Craig, Klawock or other outer coastal communities asked the Board to maintain three-fish annual limits for nonresidents harvesting Chinook in the early season, when most inside Southeast waters are closed to Chinook harvest due to “stocks of concern.”
Sarah Farber, a guide for Angling Unlimited out of Sitka, said that Chinook harvest opportunities are key “to drawing charter customers for the first half of our season.”
She said that many guests who return year after year and stimulate Sitka’s economy during their multi-day stays might cancel their trips if they knew they could only keep one or two kings.
“King salmon is the cake and other fish like rockfish and lingcod are the frosting on top,” Farber said Tuesday of the opportunity for nonresident clients to target other species.
Many trollers like Tyler Emerson spoke about the local cultural value of the commercial troll fishery, which has historically harvested the lion’s share of Chinook in Southeast and supports many local families. About 80% of troll permit holders are Southeast Alaska residents.
Emerson said that, while he’s been earning “half as much money working twice as long” since beginning to troll, he finds “tremendous meaning in working on the water” and helping to support local seafood processors that are economic drivers of Southeast coastal communities.
Lindsay Johnson, a troller from Haines, said that her family “makes a decent living trolling largely because subsistence is a big part of our life.”
Johnson said that her and other trollers’ loss of a full August Chinook opening in 2023 and 2024 has been “a big loss” to their annual income.
Nick Fama, a young troller from Ketchikan, asked the Board on Monday to reinstate guardrails on nonresident sport harvest that would maintain the historic 80/20 split in the troll/charter Chinook allocation, and ensure a priority for resident sport harvesters.
Fama said that he fully supports “our resident charter fleet, they’re phenomenal fishermen, it’s just that there’s been a bigger fleet mentality ... for about five years.”
Fama said that in recent years, he’s seen more advertisements from Ketchikan-based charter operators that need to hire more captains in order to expand their fleet of charter boats.
“How do we cap this?” Fama said.
Throughout the two days of testimony, individuals addressed questions from the seven Board members, who are relatively unfamiliar with Southeast Alaska, and are gaining an understanding of the importance of each Chinook fishery to the region.
Many individuals spoke about the total revenue that each fishery brings into Southeast and provided specific dollar figures to represent the value of one Chinook salmon, depending on which gear group harvests that Chinook.
Speaking to non-commercial, resident sport Chinook harvest, Cal Casipit, who serves on the Southeast Alaska Subsistence Regional Advisory Council, said that resident sport fishermen “should not be caught in an allocative battle between the commercial troll and the charter industries,” and should have a real resident priority.
Keenan Sanderson of Ketchikan asked Board members to remember that their votes will impact people who live in small, outlying communities in Southeast, such as Hydaburg, Angoon, Kake and Yakutat.
“There are people in this region whose money is not United States currency, but whose food is money,” Sanderson said. “You cannot eat money.”
 
Coming down the pipe
Also on Monday and Tuesday, more than 30 people spoke against Proposal 156 that would result in 25% cuts to all Southeast hatchery chum salmon production, which could have implications for hatcheries’ production of coho and Chinook.
About 20 speakers addressed how the strong herring population that returns to Sitka Sound each spring is essential to Native cultures, customary and traditional fishing practices and economies of trade.
Three people spoke in support of the current ADF&G management strategy for herring in the purse seine sac roe fishery in Sitka Sound. One person asked the Board to allow Sitka sac roe permit-holders to instead fish for spawn-on-kelp using “open pound” structures.

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