Alaska Fish Board considers over a dozen changes to Kenai dipnetting

Roughly a dozen proposals before Alaska's Board of Fisheries could mean changes for dipnetters heading to the Kenai Peninsula this summer to fill the freezer with red salmon.

The board, meeting for the first time since 2014 on Upper Cook Inlet finfish, got started in Anchorage on Thursday. The two-week meeting will consider hundreds of proposals related to Southcentral Alaska fishing, with about 200 covering everything from commercial to sportfishing.

Dipnet proposals include:

* A request from the City of Kenai to eliminate the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's emergency order authority to open the Kenai River fishery 24 hours a day. The city cites safety concerns in trying to clean the beach with heavy equipment during the early morning hours with residents still fishing.

* Two proposals that would essentially eliminate fishing from a boat and a separate proposal from the Kenai/Soldotna Fish and Game Advisory Committee that would prohibit dipnetting on the Kasilof River from vessels with a motor on board greater than 10 horsepower. Another proposal, from the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, would extend the boundary of dipnet boat fishery upstream to Cunningham Park, at river mile 6.6.

* A proposal to extend the dipnet season into August and another increasing the bag limit of salmon by 10 fish when the sonar count of sockeye salmon headed up the Kenai River exceeds 1.2 million fish. Last summer, the sonar counted 1.3 million sockeyes.

* Another proposal that would allow shore-based dipnetting along most of the Kenai River for property owners who own land on the river.

Earlier this month, Ricky Gease, executive director of the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, hosted an informal meeting for dipnetters. He said the idea was to get fishermen aware of the upcoming Fish Board meeting, which at 15 days in length can be confusing and complicated.

"You have mixed stocked, mixed species, mixed watershed fisheries. (Upper Cook Inlet) is probably one of the most complex fisheries anywhere in the world," Gease said.

Dipnetters make up the largest individual user group of fishermen in Southcentral Alaska. About 31,000 people were permitted to dipnet in the region last year. The fishery, designed to be an efficient method of harvesting fish, is limited to Alaska residents, and saw a slight decline in the number of people requesting permits last year. However, the number of individual permits has almost doubled in size since 2006.

[A slow year for dipnetters: Fish harvest on the Kenai, Kasilof rivers down slightly in 2016]

Gease said only a handful of dipnetters testified at the last Fish Board meeting in 2014.

But last summer, some dipnetters complained when the sockeye run strength was less than expected, arguing that the fishery should remain open past its normal July 31 closure.

Gease said the sportfishing group does not support an extension of the season, since it begins to cut into other fish seasons, including silver salmon.

He said the timeframe for the Kenai dipnet fisheries — set for most of July — dovetails to when the fish are expected to come back in greatest abundance.

He said the dipnet fishery has always been time-based while other fisheries, including sportfishing and commercial, are tied to the number of fish returning to the rivers.

"That's a trade-off, and I think it's a fair trade-off," Gease said.

Ken Federico, chairman of the Southcentral Alaska Dipnetters Association, agreed with not extending the season.

But he pushed back on proposals that would limit access, like elimination of the 24-hour emergency order provision and proposals that would eliminate in-river dipnet fishing.