The chair of the Uper Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory
Board said he expects the group will seek regulatory changes to the Chilkat King Salmon
Management Plan to restrict fishing on Chilkat stocks elsewhere when runs decline.
"If they’re going to shut people down, why should we bear the
brunt of it? There should be something out there to balance the field," said advisory
committee chair Gary Hess. Hess and other local anglers are miffed that Juneau fishermen
are reeling in Chilkat kings while their harvest of the same fish is severely limited.
Anglers can seek changes to those regulations at the January board of
fisheries meeting in Petersburg, said Rich Chapell, the Department of Fish and Game’s
sport fish biologist in Haines. "It will be a good time for people with concerns
about Chilkat kings to be there."
For now, the state is precisely following recommendations written in
the 2002 king management plan, a document residents helped write, Chapell said. "The
Board of Fish created the management plan with input from all local user groups and the
plan tells us exactly what to do in times of low king salmon abundance."
The plan calls for closing Chilkat Inlet to king harvest by sport
fishermen and keeping the commercial gillnet fleet out of the inlet through June, while
reducing gillnet pressure south of the inlet, Chapell said.
Juneau’s spring king salmon derby runs through May while the
Haines derby, which predates Juneau’s event, was cancelled this year after the state
closed Chilkat Inlet to retention of kings through June. The discrepancy recently prompted
a letter to the state from the Haines Borough Assembly. "You might say they’re
fishing our fish," Hess said.
But deciding whose harvest is reduced and by how much at times when
runs are depressed is an allocation decision made by the Board of Fish through the
management plan, Chapell said.
The state already is expecting a proposal to the board from the upper
Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory Committee to alter the management plan to eliminate
subsistence fishing in Chilkat Inlet in June.
The Department of Fish and Game started tagging large numbers of
juvenile king salmon in 1999, fish that returned between 2002 and 2006. Data from those
years show Juneau recreational anglers took 9 percent of the Chilkat king harvest. That
compares to 17 percent of the harvest by Haines sport fishermen, 18 percent by gillnetters
and 14 percent by trollers, Chapell said.
Skagway anglers took 29 percent of the harvest, a number that appears
to be an anomaly, he said. "We’ll have the data as complete as we can for the
Board of Fish."
Although Chilkat Inlet is closed to retention of kings until July,
fishermen can keep king salmon caught in Chilkoot Inlet. Fishing effort to date has been
low, but it’s expected to increase around Skagway as hatchery kings return to Pullen
Creek. About 1,600 fish return each year to Taiya Inlet in June and July.
Fish and Game has yet to set the bag limit for the fishery, which last
year was three kings, any size. "We’re re-thinking (the bag limit) because of
the possibility of catching Chilkat king feeders. We want to take all the pressure we can
off Chilkat kings."
The liberal bag limit ends in August when feeding kings from all over
Southeast Alaska move into the area, and hatchery-reared fish are already into Pullen
Creek. "Taiya Inlet is an important feeding habitat for inside-rearing fish in
Southeast Alaska."
