A dipnetter snares a Copper River red around midnight. (ERIK HILL / Anchorage
Daily News)
Copper River calls
to dipnetters
Permit price increases
to $25 in effort to maintain public access
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Copper River dipnetting
information: |
By DWAYNE ATWOOD
Daily News reporter
The price of admission has gone up for the thousands of dipnetters who look to the Copper River to load up on red salmon. The fee at Chitina has jumped from $10 to $25 as part of a deal reached by the state Department of Fish and Game and the Chitina and Ahtna Native corporations.
Fish and Game will get $7 from each permit sale to manage paperwork and provide more outhouses and garbage disposal sites. The Chitina Native Corp. will get $10 per permit and Ahtna will get $8 as compensation for allowing dipnetters on their property.
The increase is softened by a reclassification of the Alaskan-only fishery from personal use to subsistence. In the past, fishermen needed a $15 sportfishing license but now can dip without one. Permits will also be available at more Fish and Game offices – including Anchorage and Palmer.
Experienced dippers say the fishing gets good after waves of fish pass a Fish and Game sonar counter at Miles Lake. When the fish hit that point they have about 10 days of swimming before they reach Chitina dipnetters.
The fishing often peaks during late June, with a second run the third or fourth week of July, accord to Tom Taube, Upper Copper River sport fish biologist.
The limit this year is 30 salmon per household per season, 15 for one-member households, according to Fish and Game. Only one fish in the limit can be a king salmon, down from last year’s limit of four kings.
Much of the Copper River dipnet fishery skirts Native corporation land, which has resulted in conflicts over public access.
"We worked very hard to strike an agreement that would provide Alaskans with the opportunity to participate in the fishery to the maximum extent allowable," said Mac Minard, regional supervisor for the Division of Sport Fish in Fairbanks. "It is one of the largest and most important fisheries in the state."