Board of Fisheries Proposals

Discussion area for political and legal issues affecting Alaskan salmon fisheries.
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Salty
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Board of Fisheries Proposals

Post by Salty »

I think it is time to start circulating proposals and discussing them prior to the Board of Fisheries. So, I am going to post three that I know are likely to be submitted.

ALASKA BOARD OF FISHERIES AND ALASKA BOARD OF GAME
REGULATION PROPOSAL FORM, P.O. BOX 25526, JUNEAU, ALASKA 99802-5526
BOARD OF FISHERIES REGULATIONS
□ Fishing Area ___Southeast Alaska________
□ Subsistence □ Personal Use
□ Sport x Commercial
JOINT BOARD REGULATIONS
□ Advisory Committee □ Regional Council □ Rural
BOARD OF GAME REGULATIONS
Game Management Unit (GMU) ___________
□ Hunting □ Trapping
□ Subsistence □ Other ___________
□Resident
□Nonresident

Please answer all questions to the best of your ability. All answers will be printed in the proposal packets along with the proposer's name (address and phone numbers. will not be published). Use separate forms for each proposal.
1. Alaska Administrative Code Number 5 AAC 47.030 Regulation Book Page No. 619
2. What is the problem you would like the Board to address. The mortality of Chinook salmon from leaving Waters of frequent high Chinook salmon abundance: 5AAC 29.025 open to guided sport fishing. Scores of charter operations are now targeting these areas. It is not unusual to see 50 or more guided operations in one of these areas on a June morning. Three years ago I forwarded a magazine article describing the catch and release of 66 Chinook one afternoon by one charter vessel in one of these areas off of Sitka. With the US Canada Treaty model of Chinook abundance declining it is time to address this problem.


3. What will happen if this problem is not solved? With declining overall Chinook abundance and substantial decline in halibut abundance and quota’s it is likely guides will concentrate in the areas of high Chinook abundance even more than in the past. This is likely to lead to even more Chinook mortality. These areas of high Chinook abundance used to be extremely important to the troll fishery when they started up in July. The catch rate was usually excellent in these areas and dramatically shortened the length of the July season thereby reducing the non-retention days and associated mortality. With the dramatic increase of the guided sport fishery targeting Chinook in these areas all of May and June the troll catch rate has been reduced in July. Furthermore it is inequitable for one commercial group, guided sport fishing, to be allowed to target these Chinook in these waters of frequent high Chinook salmon abundance while another user group, trollers, who traditionally fished these areas in May and June, are excluded. It is well known that there is a lot of animosity in the communities of SE
Alaska toward the guided sport fishery because of their reluctance to share in conservation of halibut for example. This opportunity to fish in waters of high Chinook abundance and the subsequent bragging about high catch and release experiences fuels the animosity.

4. What solution do you prefer? In other words, if the Board adopted your solution, what would the new
regulation say? 5 AAC 47.030 (i) The waters of frequent high Chinook salmon abundance (5 AAC 29.025) are closed to the guided sport fishery for Chinook salmon until July 1.

5. Does your proposal address improving the quality of the resource harvested or products produced? If so, how? Conserving the resource by reducing mortality improves the reputation of Alaska for good stewardship of its salmon resource and enhances the attractiveness of our wild salmon in the market.
6. Solutions to difficult problems benefit some people and hurt others:

A. Who is likely to benefit if your solution is adopted? The resource will benefit which will benefit all users in the long run. Trollers will greatly benefit from improved catch rates in the waters of high abundance when the season opens on the first of July. Non-guided and resident sport fishermen will benefit from being able to target Chinook in the waters of high abundance in May and June without pre-emption by scores of guided operations.

B. Who is likely to suffer if your solution is adopted? Guides wedded to the areas of high abundance will have to become better at finding Chinook in other areas along the coast. Clients hooked on the sadistic practice of catching and releasing dozens of Chinook in a day may have to learn to enjoy the wonderful scenery of SE Alaska a bit more.

7. List any other solutions you considered and why you rejected them. I originally wrote this to go all season except for the July troll opening. I decided that we should try this for a cycle and see how it goes. Many of the Chinook move offshore out of these areas of high abundance in late July. The catch and release rate is likely to be reduced later in the season. Plus, when trollers are targeting coho these waters of high Chinook abundance being open to the guided fleet provide a natural separation of the gear types.
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Salty
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Re: Board of Fisheries Proposals

Post by Salty »

Here is another one:

ALASKA BOARD OF FISHERIES AND ALASKA BOARD OF GAME

REGULATION PROPOSAL FORM, P.O. BOX 25526, JUNEAU, ALASKA 99802-5526
BOARD OF FISHERIES REGULATIONS
□ Fishing Area ___Southeast Alaska___x_____
□ Subsistence □ Personal Use
□ Sport x Commercial
JOINT BOARD REGULATIONS
□ Advisory Committee □ Regional Council □ Rural
BOARD OF GAME REGULATIONS
Game Management Unit (GMU) ___________
□ Hunting □ Trapping
□ Subsistence □ Other ___________
□Resident
□Nonresident

Please answer all questions to the best of your ability. All answers will be printed in the proposal packets along with the proposer's name (address and phone numbers. will not be published). Use separate forms for each proposal.
1. Alaska Administrative Code Number 5 AAC 5 AAC 29.080. MANAGEMENT OF THE WINTER SALMON TROLL FISHERY Regulation Book Page No. 385
2. What is the problem you would like the Board to address? The Value of Alaska Winter Season Troll King Salmon is currently 3 or more times higher than the value of Alaska Summer Season Troll King Salmon. During the Winter Troll Season about 10% of the harvest is Alaska Hatchery King production. Currently that percentage is “added-on” to our summer quota. ADF&G has the tag sampling ability to accurately estimate the number of Alaska Hatchery Kings caught during the winter season and “add-on” that number to the winter season when they are more valuable.
3. What will happen if this problem is not solved? An Alaska winter troll caught king salmon is usually worth over $6.00 per pound. This contrasts to summer king salmon values in recent years of from about $1.50-$3.00 per pound. Marketing personnel indicate that week to week access to these high valuable king salmon through April helps sell and adds value to fresh halibut, rockfish, and lingcod as wholesalers work with their steady suppliers. Continuing the supply of Alaska troll caught king salmon on a year round basis solidifies the Alaska troll salmon market niche and adds value to the Hatchery access harvest in May and June. Action by the Board of Fisheries to enact this or a similar proposal will result in economic gain and opportunity for Alaska trollers, troll chinook marketers, and trolling communities.
4. What solution do you prefer? In other words, if the Board adopted your solution, what would the new
regulation say?
5 AAC 29.080. MANAGEMENT OF THE WINTER SALMON TROLL FISHERY
Statute text
(a) [b]The department shall manage the winter salmon troll fishery so that the harvest of Chinook salmon does not exceed a guideline harvest level of 45,000 plus the number of Alaska Hatchery Chinook estimated by the Department of Fish & Game to have been harvested during the winter troll fishery with a guideline harvest range of 43,000 to 47,000 plus Alaska Hatchery add-on. (b) Except in areas closed by emergency order or in the waters specified in 5 AAC 29.150, chinook salmon may be taken in all waters of Alaska east of the winter boundary line described in 5 AAC 29.020(b) , with the following exceptions:
[/b]


5. Does your proposal address improving the quality of the resource harvested or products produced? If so, how? Yes, this proposal will improve the quality of the resource harvested and products produced. Managing the troll harvest of Alaska Hatchery King salmon to optimize the value is the purpose of this proposal. The troll fishery has traditionally been managed to suit the internal allocation conveniences of various segments of a highly diversified fleet both in terms of geography and lifestyle interests in when they want to fish. The value of managing the troll fleet to produce an additional 5,000 15-pound king salmon when they are worth about $6.00 per pound instead of about $1.50-3.00 per pound would add about $45 per fish or $225,000 to the troll fleet from the difference in the value of these fish alone. Additional value would be added to as Alaska seafood marketers and other fishermen benefited.
6. Solutions to difficult problems benefit some people and hurt others:

A. Who is likely to benefit if your solution is adopted?
Consumers, trollers, seafood marketers, SE communities, the state of Alaska. Southeast troll communities in the inside and southern areas of the region commonly experience a later bite. Adding these hatchery fish to the quota makes it more likely that the winter troll season will extend through April and that trollers and communities throughout the region will get more of these high value winter Chinook.

B. Who is likely to suffer if your solution is adopted.

Trollers who prefer to limit their troll season to July and August will have 5,000 less king salmon available for the summer share of the quota. This will cost them a day or two of king salmon fishing in July.
Trollers participating in the extended spring fishery in April will have less time to dig clams and steelhead fish. Clam and steelhead loving members of their families will suffer this loss of opportunity to help the trollers harvest clams and steelhead. They will have to eat white king instead. (Not everyone will consider this to be great suffering).

7. List any other solutions you considered and why you rejected them.
The idea for this proposal came from a Sitka ADF&G Troll and ATA port meeting in 2004. A great deal of the conversation and information at the port meeting was about how to optimize the value of troll caught salmon and how the troll fleet needed to look at everything from harvest patterns to fish handling to better serve what the market wants instead of asking the market to accommodate our complex life style and internal allocation disputes. This proposal will add value to the troll fishery, troll communities, and marketers. DO NOT WRITE HERE
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Re: Board of Fisheries Proposals

Post by Salty »

Fellow trollers: This possession limit proposal was developed for ATA 3 years ago. The Board of Fisheries did not take action but appointed a subcommittee of the Board to work on it. So far as I know the subcommittee has been inactive. John Jensen of Petersburg is the chair of the subcommittee. I would love to hear what some of the rest of you are proposing.

ALASKA BOARD OF FISHERIES AND ALASKA BOARD OF GAME

REGULATION PROPOSAL FORM, P.O. BOX 25526, JUNEAU, ALASKA 99802-5526
BOARD OF FISHERIES REGULATIONS

□ Fishing Area ___Southeast Alaska________

□ Subsistence □ Personal Use

□ Sport x Commercial
JOINT BOARD REGULATIONS

□ Advisory Committee □ Regional Council □ Rural




BOARD OF GAME REGULATIONS

Game Management Unit (GMU) ___________

□ Hunting □ Trapping

□ Subsistence □ Other ___________

□Resident

□Nonresident



Please answer all questions to the best of your ability. All answers will be printed in the proposal packets along with the proposer's name (address and phone numbers. will not be published). Use separate forms for each proposal.

1. Alaska Administrative Code Number 5 AAC 75.995 Regulation Book Page No. 705

2. What is the problem you would like the Board to address. By not including "preserved" fish in the sport "possession" limits large numbers of sport caught fish in excess of possession limits are being shipped out of Southeast Alaska. By removing the word "unpreserved" for SE Alaska sport limits we are closing the loophole that allows multiple "possession" limits to be exported. Sport possession limits in SE Alaska are more than sufficient to allow for plenty of fish to be exported.





3. What will happen if this problem is not solved? Recent improvements in preservation technology particularly freezing has made the ability to preserve fish available to many more sport fishermen than when these regulations were written. It is common now for many lodges, charter boats, and processing companies to freeze sport fish harvest every evening so the fish no longer count toward the possession limit. So, possession limits increasingly are meaningless or only apply to those unable to access freezing technology.



4. What solution do you prefer? In other words, if the Board adopted your solution, what would the new regulation say? 5AAC 75.995. Definitions (20) "possession limit" in Southeast Alaska means the maximum number of [unpreserved] fish a person may have in his possession until returning to his domicile.



5. Does your proposal address improving the quality of the resource harvested or products produced? If so, how? This clarifies the intent of "possession limits" so that preserved fish such as frozen fish are included until the person returns to their domicile.

6. Solutions to difficult problems benefit some people and hurt others:

A. Who is likely to benefit if your solution is adopted? Clarifying regulations by closing loopholes which have developed due to advances in technology benefits the resources and all users.
B. Who is likely to suffer if your solution is adopted? Sport fishermen taking fish in excess of their "possession limits" before returning to their domicile.



7. List any other solutions you considered and why you rejected them. We considered doing nothing but the amount of abuse we see of this regulation prompts action. A companion proposal redefines the "possession limit" for SE Chinook salmon so that SE non-resident and resident sport fishermen may possess the "annual chinook limit".







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