New rules for Alaska resident sport fishermen in the federal waters of the Exclusive Economic Zone will be the subject of a public Alaska Department of Fish and Game “preseason meeting” Wednesday night in Centennial Hall.
For the first time, residents who are sport fishing this year in the EEZ must follow all nonresident seasons, bag and possession limits, annual limits and size limits. The EEZ is the offshore, federal waters between three nautical miles and 200 nautical miles from shore.
Of all Southeast communities, Sitka is most engaged with this change, as resident anglers can readily access the EEZ, ADF&G Sitka Area Manager Troy Tydincgo said in a recent interview.
The new rules also concern sport anglers near west Prince of Wales Island, Yakutat and Cross Sound, which are within easy reach of the zone that's being regulated.
The change follows a ruling by the Alaska Board of Fisheries at its Southeast meeting in February over a proposal (105) by California lawmaker Marc Gorelnik that sought to equalize “differential regulations for resident and nonresident anglers” in federal waters.
Gorelnik’s proposal cited the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation Act, which first took effect in 1976, and provides that "you may not apply management provisions that differentiate between residents of different states” in federal waters, Tydingco said.
He explained that ADF&G sets rules for sport fishing in the EEZ because the department has “delegated management authority from the federal government to manage sport fisheries” in federal waters, with the exception of halibut sport fisheries, which are federally managed.
He said that, historically, it wasn’t relevant for the state to set up bag limits specific to the EEZ, where there is low fishing effort.
In 2021, 2022 and 2023, residents' harvest from the EEZ comprised less than 1 percent of all resident king salmon harvest, 2 percent of lingcod harvest, 2 percent of nonpelagic rockfish harvest and 7 percent of all resident black cod harvest in Southeast, per ADF&G harvest survey data.
Nonresidents' harvest from the EEZ is higher for all species, except king salmon. An average 38% of all nonresident-caught black cod, and 20% of all nonresident harvest of nonpelagic rockfish came from the EEZ in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Until this year, all state regulations for residents have applied in both state and federal waters, even when they allow residents more opportunities to harvest fish from the EEZ.
“Historically, it hasn't even been an issue,” Tydingco said. “As the sport fleet has gotten bigger, better boats, they've just slowly moved from city centers, out and out,” to offshore waters, Tydingco said.
“Still, it's a relatively small portion of the harvest, but it was just never even an issue,” Tydingco said. “Nobody really even thought about it or considered it, until we got a proposal this year.”
ADF&G leaders saw the issue coming down the pipe after receiving Gorelnik's proposal last spring, and conferred with the Alaska Department of Law to craft a strategy to bring to the Board of Fish table.
“Sure enough, it was law’s recommendation that we need to be in compliance with the MSA,” Tydingco said.
So, during its latest Southeast meeting in Ketchikan this winter, the Board unanimously passed RC80, which ADF&G staff prepared for a Board member to answer Gorelnik’s proposal. RC80 states that “nonresident regulations will apply to all anglers when sport fishing in the EEZ.”
With the regulatory change, all anglers, including residents, who are fishing in the EEZ must follow ADF&G regulations for nonresidents.
Explaining the change, Tydingco said that, “first of all, there’s no change for nonresidents” or charter operators who are guiding nonresidents.
“Essentially," he said, "It's just that residents have to comply with all nonresident regulations in the EEZ. It’s something that they've never had to think about before.”
To comply with the new rules, residents must first know if they are fishing in the EEZ, which generally begins three miles from shore.
For Sitka Sound, the EEZ begins three miles offshore from a line that runs roughly from Cape Edgecumbe to Biorka. Tydingco noted that areas of the sound such as Vitzkari Rocks are state waters.
A map of the EEZ boundary line, as well as a summary of the regulatory changes for residents, is posted at local harbors, and on page ten of the department’s “2025 sport fishing regulations summary” for Southeast. Most nautical charts are marked with the EEZ line, as well.
When residents are fishing across the EEZ boundary, they must know and follow all nonresident regulations, Fish and Game says.
Complicated scenarios could arise for resident anglers who fish in the EEZ after fishing in state waters, Tydingco explained.
For instance, residents can’t go fish in the EEZ if they’ve already caught fish in state waters that day that are not of legal size for nonresidents, or are out of season for nonresidents.
Tydingco explained that it’s now illegal for residents to fish for halibut in the EEZ immediately after catching lingcod or rockfish during a nonresident season closure for lingcod or rockfish.
However, it would be legal to “do that in reverse order, go catch halibut (in the EEZ), and then come back and fish under resident regulations in state waters,” he said.
Residents must also follow nonresident king salmon regulations in the EEZ. This year the state's nonresident king salmon limit is one per year, so residents can only keep one king salmon from the EEZ this year.
In state waters, residents can catch one king salmon per day, with no annual limit.
Residents must also record their harvest from the EEZ of any species with an annual harvest limit for nonresidents, including sablefish, lingcod, rockfish, and king salmon.
People can mark their harvests from the EEZ on their sport fishing license or harvest card, Tydingco said.
Steve Ramp, a resident sport fisherman, explained today that the primary change will be for resident anglers fishing in the EEZ during nonresident closures for rockfish and lingcod.
For instance, during the mid-season nonresident lingcod fishing closure in all state and federal waters, "residents fishing out (in the EEZ) would not be able to fish lingcod, when normally, we could keep one a day every day," Ramp said.
And when lingcod fishing is open for nonresidents, residents fishing in the EEZ would have to abide by the nonresident lingcod size limit, Ramp said.
Ramp said that he’s “talked to a lot of people” about the change, and residents have said that “either ‘it doesn’t affect me because I don’t fish out there’ or ‘I don’t know what it means,’ and I try to explain it to them.”
He said that the rule will be an “enforcement quagmire” and “hard for charter captains to decipher,” especially if they are guiding both resident and nonresident anglers at the same time.
Tydingco said that department leaders are working to sort through all of these different regulatory scenarios before they become problematic to resident anglers.
ADF&G staff, as well as personnel from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Coast Guard will be available during Wednesday’s meeting to discuss the ways that the new rule affects resident sport fishermen, Tydingco said.
All members of the public are welcome to attend the 7 p.m. meeting at Centennial Hall on Wednesday, and to bring their questions about the EEZ change and other fishing regulations for 2025.
During the meeting, Tydingco will give a short presentation explaining the regulatory changes for residents in the EEZ.
The meeting also is a "one-stop-shop" for mariners with questions for NOAA or USCG.
"If you have halibut questions, or Coast Guard questions, they're happy to help get the public the answers they need," Tydingco said today.
This article has been updated to correct an error published in the May 13, 2025 edition of the Sentinel, which incorrectly stated that lingcod fisheries are open year round for residents. The Sentinel regrets the error.