The Lower Cook Inlet 2023 sport fishery town hall took place in Homer on Oct. 25 at Alaska Islands and Oceans Visitor Center. The event, hosted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, was aimed at reviewing the season and looking at the management actions taken for the year.
About 35 people attended, as well as several representatives from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who presented summaries and reviews of sport fisheries in the region.
In an interview several days after the meeting took place, ADF&G biologist Danielle Siegert said the decline in king salmon was one of biggest issues discussed.
“In terms of monitoring, we’re seeing the same trends with kings that we’ve observed over the passed few years, including really low escapements and late run timings,” she said.
Other topics discussed included steelhead sport fishing in the Anchor River, Deep Creek and the Ninilchik river. According to Siegert, that fishery went pretty well this summer and was a bright spot in the sport division.
There was not much discussion about rockfish. All of the sport fisheries closed on Oct. 31.
Also in a post-meeting discussion, sport fish area manager Mike Booz expressed appreciation for the diversity of the audience and a decent turnout of community members.
The people who engage in sport fisheries participate in a variety of ways, he said. For example, there are commercial fishermen who sport fish on the side as well as others who participate mainly with the local charter operations and tourism industry.
Booz also identified king salmon as a key topic of discussion.
“Though we are seeing lower returns of Cook Inlet kings, we are seeing better and better returns of non-local stock,” he said. “There’s a lot of complexity in management when it comes to mixed stock returns.”
One method of stock identification is a result of coded wire tagging, Booz explained.
Booz said a number of proposals in consideration for the upcoming Board of Fish Lower Cook Inlet meeting are related to saltwater king harvest details.
The Board of Fish meeting will take place in Homer from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1 at Land’s End Resort and is open to the public. There are 43 proposals in consideration for sport, commercial, personal use and subsistence finfish fisheries. Other species such as razor clams and tanner crab will be discussed at the statewide miscellaneous shellfish meeting, Booz said.
“There are a fair number of sport fishery proposals included in the index. There’s a China Poot personal use sockeye salmon proposal the board is going to be looking at, as well as several commercial proposals.”
Full details on the proposals can be found online through the ADF&G website. Members of the public can provide comments and feedback to the board online for the proposals before the Nov. 13. They can also testify at the meeting in person. Following comments, the seven-member board from across the state will deliberate on the proposals in an open forum and then vote.
In addition to the proposal review, the November event will also include a more general town hall meeting with ADF&G Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang on Nov. 27 at 6:30 p.m. The topic of this public meeting is general bycatch management and the challenge of this issue for the State of Alaska.
Public notice for the meeting via the ADF&G website provides more details stating that “bycatch occurs in all fisheries and managers must balance many conservation and economic factors when establishing regulations.
“Attend this town hall meeting with ADF&G Commissioner Vincent-Lang to share your ideas for strengthening Gulf of Alaska fishery management programs to support sustainable fisheries and communities.”
