The Mat-Su Fish and Game Advisory Committee has eight new members supported by pro-hunting and fishing groups, following an election Wednesday night that boasted a record-setting turnout.

Winning three-year seats on the board were Andy Couch, Mel Grove, Tony Jones, Dan Montgomery and Stephan Bartelli.

Bennett Durgeloh was elected to serve a two-year seat on the board. Eric Beckman and Kathy Thompson were elected to one-year terms as board alternates.

The committee is made up of 15 members and two alternates. It advises the state boards of fish and game on fishing and hunting regulations.

Organizers of the event said 639 people signed in at the meeting. Past committee secretary Mark Chryson said the turnout was the largest he'd ever seen at an annual election meeting. Denny Hamann, a former committee chairman, said attendance spikes up to 100 people or so at annual meetings but Wednesday's turnout was unprecedented.

Hamann said he believed the large turnout was due in part to a backlash against the Jan. 8 Anchorage Fish and Game Advisory Committee meeting where opposing groups -- consumptive users such as hunters and fishermen and non-consumptive users such as wildlife viewers -- got 530 people to turn out in an effort to win seats on the committee.

The Valley group, Chryson said, was made up almost entirely of people who support hunting and fishing rights.

Hamann said although anyone from Southcentral Alaska can vote in the advisory committee elections, about 90 percent of those who attended Wednesday signed in with Valley addresses.

Most who attended had to wait up to a half-hour in a line that stretched through a hallway and out the Wasilla High School's front doors to sign in. Many filled their write-in ballots while referring to photocopied lists of names provided by groups such as the Wasilla-based Conservative Patriots Group and Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife-Alaska.