Alaska Fishing

COOPER LANDING -- Not every Alaska angler heading to the state's best-known sportfishery this month is chasing red salmon with hook and line. Some local folks are going to the Russian River with dipnets.

In a new twist on subsistence management in Alaska, "rural" Kenai Peninsula residents from the communities of Cooper Landing, Ninilchik and Hope can now harvest up to 25 sockeyes from the Russian River by scooping them out with a net.

The subsistence fishery, which opened quietly last week for its second year, was created by federal officials over objections from the state, sportfishing groups, and even some Cooper Landing residents.

Recognizing the potential controversy, officials have set up the dipnet fishery to minimize conflicts with the thousands of sportfishermen on the Russian River.

Dipnetting takes place below the Russian River falls, hundreds of yards upriver from where sportfishing ends. That means the subsistence-caught red salmon, which bunch up in pools below the falls before continuing their spawning run, will have already made it past the fly-fishing hordes.

But the dipnetting takes place in full view of a U.S. Forest Service platform where hikers can watch salmon leap into the white foam.

"I had tourists yelling down at me, 'Hey, what are you doing? You can't do that here,' " said Robert Gibson, a Cooper Landing lodge owner and fishing guide who dipped salmon with a landing net last year. "I just calmly explained that I had a federal subsistence fishing permit and needed to mark the fish, and then they understood."

Last year, only 712 reds were reported taken in the small subsistence fishery, along with five silver salmon and one rainbow trout. One-third of those were taken on hooks -- some local residents choose to catch their fish on rod and reel, taking advantage of a daily bag limit of six reds instead of the sportfish limit of three.

A serious impediment to the dipnet fishery is the three-mile hike out from the falls with your harvest on your back.

For the Russian River reds, whose numbers usually run to tens of thousands, the extra fish don't present a conservation concern. Federal managers have allocated up to 4,000 reds for subsistence use from the Kenai River.

But the whole idea of a subsistence fishery along the highway to Anchorage -- and the process that led to it -- has caused "heartburn" for the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, said the group's executive director, Ricky Gease. Appeals to overturn the fishery from KRSA and the state are still pending in front of the Federal Subsistence Board.

"It seems to have worked out. Not too many people have ventured up to the falls," said Gease. "But back in 1992, when the state's personal-use fishery on the Kenai River started, the first year wasn't a very big fishery either."

A LONG, WINDING ROAD

The twists and turns leading to a Russian River dipnet fishery offer an interesting case study of the politics of subsistence management in modern-day Alaska.

For starters, it's necessary to consider the concept of "rural enclave." Instead of the way people usually think of rural areas -- as lightly populated regions surrounding cities -- the federal fishery is premised on small communities maintaining rural characteristics inside the official "non-rural" area of urbanized Southcentral Alaska.

Another twist: The Russian River has been used by indigenous people who harvested salmon there for many centuries, as archaeological digs have made plain. But the descendants of those people, the Kenaitze Indians, mostly live in the "urban" town of Kenai and do not qualify for federal subsistence rights.

Subsistence hunting and fishing was made a priority on federal land in Alaska by Congress in 1980, as part of a broad conservation law. Federal subsistence was extended to fishing on rivers adjacent to federal land in 1998 after a series of court decisions.

The state also provides a priority for subsistence in rural parts of Alaska. But for constitutional reasons, the state's subsistence fisheries are open to all Alaskans, regardless of where they live. The federal rules tie specific rural communities to specific fisheries based on "customary and traditional" use.

The state flatly declared almost all of Southcentral Alaska a non-subsistence zone because of its large population. But since the Russian River flows between a national forest and a national wildlife refuge, it has always been potentially subject to federal rules. Several steps had to take place, however, before a law aimed at preserving Bush culture could be applied to pensioners in Kenai Peninsula retirement homes.

First, local communities had to be declared "rural." That happened in 2001, despite official opposition from the Cooper Landing fish and game advisory committee, a state-chartered group. Cooper Landing is a scenic unincorporated community of about 350 people, many of them retired. Local hunters and fishermen said they didn't want to open a Pandora's box with subsistence.

But the Federal Subsistence Board, made up of heads of federal resource agencies in Alaska, approved the rural designation at the urging of the Regional Advisory Council for Southcentral Alaska. The regional advisory councils are made up of appointed local residents and have great sway under the federal system.

No one from Cooper Landing was on the council at the time. The group's main focus was on Ninilchik, a community of more than 750 where a tribal group, the Ninilchik Traditional Council, was seeking subsistence access to the Kasilof and Kenai rivers.

"My personal opinion is that the Ninilchik Traditional Council was the driving force," said Bill Stockwell, a fly-fisherman who was then head of the state's Cooper Landing fish and game committee.

Next, the federal board had to establish a "customary and traditional" link between the three rural communities and specific fisheries. The historic ties between Cooper Landing and reds hoisted from the Russian was pretty easy to make, dating back to gold-mining days. So was the tie between Ninilchik and the Kasilof River.

NINILCHIK'S CONNECTION

More controversial was linking Ninilchik, 100 miles away, with the Russian River. Granting consumption rights to rainbow trout -- now a popular trophy species -- was also challenged unsuccessfully by opponents.

The official "customary and traditional" linkages were adopted in January 2006, and the subsistence fishery first began in June 2007.

No uproar followed -- in part because not that many people took advantage of the new rules. The first year saw only 72 permits from the Kenai Peninsula communities, and many of those were not used, said Doug Palmer, the Soldotna-based manager of the federal fishery for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A big reason, Palmer and others say, is that the state personal-use dipnet fisheries for the Kasilof and Kenai rivers provide lots of fish for the public, including members of the rural communities. In addition, the Ninilchik and Kenai tribes have access to "educational" gillnet fisheries approved by the state.

In Ninilchik, the traditional council is now involved in a drawn-out effort to establish a fish wheel on the Kasilof, said Palmer. Whoever runs the fish wheel under a federal subsistence permit has to agree to provide fish to all residents of Ninilchik, Native and non-Native alike, he said.

Ninilchik tribal leaders could not be reached Friday. They were traveling, an assistant said.

These days, the political complexion of the federal advisory councils is changing in ways that may make them less aggressive advocates. New members on the Southcentral council include Stockwell, the former state fish and game committee chairman, and Gease, head of the Kenai River sporfishing group.

Meanwhile, however, Cooper Landing subsistence seems to be growing in local popularity.

"What's been driving Cooper Landing is the feeling that if they (Ninilchik) have got it, why can't we?" said Stockwell.

Local enthusiasm extends to new moose-hunting rights extended to the community: an early hunting season on federal lands on the Kenai.

"It's kind of interesting, the way it's developed," said Jerry Berg, Fish and Wildlife's statewide subsistence coordinator. "In interviews, most people there said they didn't want to be involved. Now most of the people getting permits are from Cooper Landing."

In fact, federal officials say, there's talk from the community of getting a more convenient spot to dipnet, a place older people could use. And there's talk of seeking a related preference that could turn out to be truly explosive: a local priority at the Russian River for parking.

Find Tom Kizzia online at adn.com/contact/tkizzia or call him in Homer at 907-235-4244.

How it works

• WHO QUALIFIES? ZIP codes 99572, 99695, 99639 (residents of rural Kenai communities of Cooper Landing, Hope and Ninilchik).

• WHO MADE THE RULES? Federal Subsistence Board. State opposes the fishery.

• HOW CAN THEY FISH? With dipnets at Russian River falls and from boats on two points on lower Kenai. Also with rod and reel on Russian and Kenai, with twice the normal daily bag limit of 3 fish.

• HOW MANY CAN THEY TAKE? 25 red salmon per head of household, five each for other members. Permits also available for coho salmon, rainbow trout.

• HOW MANY FISH ARE REALLY TAKEN? Last year, the fishery's first, 712 reds were reported caught. 72 permits were taken out. Many went unused.

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