No August King opener

[mydona]

Just read that there will not be a second king opener this year. http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/home/ ... 230794.pdf After crunching some numbers I see that there are approx. 45,862 still on the quota. If we caught 84,000 in 6 days, Why can't we have a 3 day opener? Isn't 3 days is just what the quality control office would rather have? After last years debacle maybe Pattie Skannes is a little gun shy?

[fveureka]

Yes, does sound like fuzzy math. Do those fish roll over into 2014? doubt it. Lets fish! Hope there is not a 10 day coho closure on top of this mess. I stopped fishing Kings on the 4th because I heard about an August opener. Wow I feel duped.

[Kelper]

Once you subtract the spring fishery, and perhaps the winter, all of our kings are caught up. I don't have a copy of the management plan handy, so Dale will have to jump in and explain. Last I heard Dale was having trouble posting on the site though.


Sure seems to be a lot of kings in the ocean this year...

[mydona]

I couldn't find numbers on the comm fish page but Dale did post some numbers. " Here's the short version: Numbers this time of year are VERY preliminary, so in round terms this is how it looks, as of this moment, for the harvest of quota fish (and it WILL change a bit) - Winter - 22,600 Spring - 23,500 Summer - 81,000 = 127,100. The troll portion of the quota is just over 129,000 fish. Over 800 boats made Chinook landings, so even if there are a couple thousand fish left, there is no practical way to open the fleet on them."

[Kelper]

I think the real question we all need to be asking is that if the trollers could catch 81000 in 6 days, then why was the abundance estimated at such a low amount? Seems like there was plenty out there, and still is plenty out there.

[carojae]

I understood there was a low catch rate for the July opener with hints of an extension. And now August will not happen?
Why all the turmoil concerning the numbers?

[Carol W]

Kelper wiiji board science a computer tells them the abundance rather than reality in the field. All users of SE king salmon resource are being screwed.

Happy shaking

[Abundance]

I was certain that the king numbers were way down in accordance with ADF&G estimates myself, after the winter and spring misery. Winter was fifty percent of normal, and May was a disaster for me. I am sure some people did well enough, but by June I was ready to do something else. Then mid June, the catch reports that I was getting started to get really good. The July reports were downright staggering. You always hear the good stories, but everybody seemed to have them. Where did they come from? I ended up chumming on the best chum month in history, so no complaints, but what is up with those kings? I am curious to hear what rivers those fish originated from, as opposed to our winter/spring stocks. Hopefully the record breaking coho streak continues and they make up for the lack of a second king opening. I think that this is still a very good year, regardless of this news. Still, would have liked to keep my late summer kings.

[carojae]

The troll plan is intended to insure/target a opening in August. 70%/30% with 30% seen as the number for August. Fail...........

Its not that we need this August opening for the most part (this year) but I hate to see so much mystery lately on what we have or don't for King Salmon trolling.

Oh well........

[Salty]

The state of Alaska manages salmon based on in season abundance because they, and no one else to my knowledge, have never been able to accurately predict salmon returns year after year. There is just not enough research and tracking going on to account for all the variables from spawning escapement to the off springs return.
Stream conditions, lake environment, early ocean survival, long term ocean survival, and mature mortalities.

For example just this year:

1. SE Chinook abundance appears way up since June;
2. DIPAC chums return way higher than predicted (about 4.5 million now);
3. SSRAA chums return way poorer than predicted;
4. NSRAA Chinook and Chums look way stronger than predicted in Sitka;
5. SE Pink harvest is tracking toward 70-100 million on a 50 million run size forecast.

The Treaty prediction model is flawed, our Alaska treaty representatives, with the exception of a minority, have not performed as well as previous teams, and the result is Alaska trollers are losing millions of dollars worth of Chinook this year. Instead of being happy with the season SE trollers should be outraged. I am.

[yak2you2]

If I have my understanding right, we fought to implement the Abundance index, so that we weren't saddled with a permanent preset number of fish. It makes sense that the number should go up or down based on what fish are available, so we were right to fight for it. Predicting fish returns is sketchy at best, and this with all honest attempts.
We had to come up with a format that gave the system the vary best chance of being accurate, enter the afore described Ouiji board science that Carol W describes. Data is fed into a computer that gives us our best guess, that we have all agreed to go with. The problem isn't the Ouiji board computer guessing though. The problem is the intentionally askewed data that gets fed into it.
The calculating is done by way of adding up all the estimated returns of "sentinel streams". These are hand picked river systems dotted down the coast line. I couldn't tell you how many there are, how many Alaska has, or any other region, but they are what matters. So, if you intentionally forcasted the run strengths in sentinel streams of lets say, Washington state (hypothetically speaking), to be chronically low year after year, no matter what the run strength really was, this data is going to intentionally give a lower abundance index for Alaska fishermen than what reality is. Is this happening? Couldn't tell you for sure, all I know for sure is, looking over the side of the boat, it sure as hell feels like it.
I feel that if were going to continue with this program, we need to rework it, so that we can all trust each other better. Since we long ago by way of the Treaty recognized that were all in bed together when it comes to Chinook salmon, I see no reason why we can't get more liberal with our trans-border biological staff. I think Sentinel stream run strength forcasts should be set by a panel of biologists representing ALL parties, for each and every stream. Meaning, we got a guy looking over your data to make sure it's accurate, and you've got one looking over our data. That way, none of us walks away feeling ripped off, like I am, right now.

[Salty]

going to go sport fishing tomorrow to check abundance.
Will let you know.
1. When we lower the downriggers until the king salmon rip off the releases repeatedly before we get to the desired depth it usually means abundance is up.

[John Murray]

It's unfortunate in some respects the king season went the way it did,but we are up against it on a number of fronts. First the way the treaty works in- season management only cuts one way,a possible early closure with no avenue for a bump when we have a situation like this season.(see Fish Passage Center website it shows the best run of fall chinooks passed the Bonneville dam in over 10 years in close to 800,000)Second we have lost an allies such as the BC troll fleet since the troll fleet there was thrown under the bus.Third those fish that were projected to go back to the Columbia as 26 in.thereby unharvestable grew up because the ocean environment was so rich with many types of feed being available.If you were paying attention you could see those small kings putting it on as the season progressed.That goes along with the small average weight in our July opener.
Can this be addressed at the treaty level? Will there be a bright side of this on the post season number crunching IE a increase in 2014.Either way around it its a uphill battle.