Tag Archives: setnetters
Dividing the baby
Alaska’s Kenai River is today a textbook example of the problems of managing mixed-stock fisheries right down to commercial set gillnetters protesting they catch comparatively few of the weak stock. The weak stock is in this case Chinook, or what Alaskans usually just call king salmon, and it just happens to be the same fish that gets caught as trawl bycatch in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. To date this year, according to National Marine Fisheries Service data, trawlers in the Bering Sea have caught about 11,000 Chinook on their way to a harvest of nearly 1 million metric tons, or about 2.2 billion pounds of pollock. >click to read< 09:04
Cook Inlet setnet permit buyout bill stalled in Senate
Senate Bill 90, sponsored by Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna, would establish a mechanism in law for setnetters on Cook Inlet’s East Side to set up a permit buyback. There’s no funding included in the bill, but the establishment of the mechanism itself would allow stakeholders to seek funding, whether it comes from the federal government, state, or private equity. ,, The East Side setnet fishery has gradually been losing value for years. For the last few decades, user-group politics have led to the Board of Fisheries reducing the time and area allowances for setnetters on Cook Inlet’s East Side, who compete for salmon headed for the Kenai and Kasilof rivers, which also host large sport and personal-use fisheries. more, >click to read< 20:46
Sen. Pete Micciche proposes setnet buyback bill
Sen. Pete Micciche (R-Soldotna) is having another go at getting a bill through the legislature that would reduce the number of commercial east side setnetters in Upper Cook Inlet by about half, something that is supported by the leaders of the Kenai Peninsula Fishermen’s Association, a setnetter organization. Micciche and KPFA say the effort began about four years ago, and Micciche pre-filed a bill before the last legislative session. That bill, Senate Bill 135, stated that “the Alaska Legislature finds that it is in the public interest to reduce the number of commercial setnet fishers on the east side of Cook Inlet.” >click to read<16:53
More restrictions proposed for Northern District setnetters
Setnetting on the beaches of northern Cook Inlet isn’t a very visible fishery, but participants argue it’s a viable one. The Northern Cook Inlet setnet fishery operates between a line between Boulder Point in Nikiski and the Kustatan Peninsula on the west side of the inlet and Fire Island. Fishermen can target all five species of Pacific salmon at different times throughout the summer, beginning May 25 with a directed king salmon fishery. As northern district setnetter Trevor Rollman put it in his testimony the Board of Fisheries on Friday, the fishery doesn’t have an official closure, but rather it’s the weather that closes them for the season. Most of the fishermen land in Anchorage. Many of them direct-market their catch, as Rollman said he intended to do with his site in the future. Direct-marketers, sometimes called catcher-sellers, harvest and prepare their catch themselves, selling it directly to customers. Read the full article here 08:57
Kenai, East Forelands setnets open for first period
A skiff called the Santa Maria, flying a pirate flag, skidded into the Nikiski beach, grating to a heavy halt. The crew efficiently hauled the boat further up into the sand with a tractor, and a truck with peeling paint rolled back alongside it to receive the fish piled inside. Soon, slime, water and blood were flying as the crew of four cheerfully pitched the fish into the bed of the truck. The setnetters in the Kenai and East Forelands sections wet their gear for the first time this season Monday. Their counterparts in the Kasilof section have been fishing since June 23, and the drift gillnet fleet has been fishing since June 20. The setnet fisheries in the Kasilof, Kenai and East Forelands will be open until Aug. 15 unless closed earlier by emergency order. Monday was a regular period for the setnetters, a 12-hour opening from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. An emergency order issued around 1 p.m. extended the period until midnight, giving the setnetters an additional five hours of fishing time. Read the rest here 10:06
AJOC EDITORIAL: Time for Penney to drop vendetta against setnetters
Bob Penney is now 0 for 2 at the Alaska Supreme Court in his efforts to reallocate Cook Inlet salmon stocks at the ballot box, but he’s not giving up the fight against commercial fishermen. It’s past time that he did after some three decades of dividing the community with his nonstop efforts to drive his neighbors out of business and turn the Kenai River into his personal playpen. After the court emphatically rejected his ballot initiative that would ban setnetting from Cook Inlet beaches on Dec. 31, Penney released a statement that, “Maybe it’s time the federal government looked into this issue.” Read the editorial here 19:52
Drifters, setnetters to fish at Kasilof River mouth in about, oh, three hours or so!
The emergency order opens set gillnetting within a two-mile area around the mouth of the Kasilof River for a 29-hour period from 6 p.m. on Tuesday through 11 p.m. on Wednesday. The emergency order also opens drift gillnetting in the area from 6p.m. to 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday and from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Wednesday. This announcement marks the first time during the 2015 fishing season that fisheries managers will use the special harvest area to control sockeye salmon escapement up the Kasilof River Read the rest here 20:01
Tug-of-war over salmon on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula may reach fever pitch
Each summer in Alaska, salmon by the millions flood into the great mixing bowl of Cook Inlet between the popular and populated Kenai Peninsula to the south and the towering, wild Aleutian Range to the north. The fish are money — Alaska wild silver prime for the taking — and for that reason they have come to fuel one of state’s longest-running and most contentious political battles. Read more@alaskadispatch 23:09
Compass: Setnetters share burden, stake in sustaining Kenai kings
Dan Coffey’s recent compass piece, “Act now or we will lose the Kenai River kings (July 24)” once again illustrates this former Alaska Board of Fisheries chairman’s bias toward he commercialized sport fisheries on the Kenai River, as well as his willingness to twist/omit facts in pursuit of marginalizing the historic setnet fishery on the Kenai Peninsula to maximize in-river participation. Coffey lists: ocean survival, high-seas trawlers, setnetters, marginal productivity, and “there may be others” as reasons for the decline of Kenai River kings. @adn.com
Setnetters – Alaska Department of Fish and Game head-to-head in an Anchorage courtroom on Tuesday. Kenai King Salmon Alliance granted intervention status
Setnetters and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game went head-to-head at a preliminary injunction hearing in an Anchorage courtroom on Tuesday. The Kenai King Salmon Alliance was granted intervention status by the court on Monday, meaning it will be allowed to advocate for the state. continued@ktuu
Closure fresh in memory, setnetters innovate for season
KENAI — Gary Hollier has a king salmon problem.The commercial setnetter has had it for a few years and he’s far from the only one. Most of the east side setnet fishery in the Cook Inlet was largely shut out of their fishing season last year after seeing their fishing time drastically reduced in 2011 in the name of king salmon conservation.With last season’s federally-declared economic disaster hanging over his head, and the threat of being largely shut out of another season in 2013 looming, the 42-year veteran of commercial setnetting decided to make some drastic changes of his own. continued
