United Southeast Alaska Gillnetter’s Association

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By Margaret Bauman
Reprinted from the Alaska Journal of Commerce

A new fishery management program announced Jan. 4 is expected to stabilize the contentious guided sport halibut fishery by permanently limiting participation to some 920 vessels in Southeast and the Central Gulf of Alaska regions.

The permit plan – with a 60 day application period to begin in February – would include 502 vessels in Southeast Alaska, and 418 vessels in the Central Gulf of Alaska, which includes Cook Inlet, said Jay Ginter, regulatory branch chief for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau.

The new plan, previously approved by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, will go into effect on Feb. 1, 2011. It grew out of a need to stabilize harvests from the guided sport fishery, which were increasing annually and coming in well beyond the guideline harvest level in some areas.

The Alaska IFQ halibut and sablefish fisheries are an important fisheries management program not just for Alaska, but the entire world. Lessons from this fishery have shaped and will continue to shape the design of quota programs around the globe.

We greatly appreciate your assistance in answering this short survey on crew makeup in the current halibut and sablefish fisheries. Comparatively little data are available regarding crew and their connection to regional economies. With your help this survey will fill in some of those missing pieces. Results from this survey allow us to measure the economic impact of the quota share holders and crew on different communities throughout the North Pacific.

December 7, 2009, 10am-5:30 pm.
Ketchikan, Alaska

Presentations were made as follows:

• Bo Meredith – Tree Point
• Scott Forbes – POW/Stikine
• Dave Harris – Taku/Snettisham
• Randy Bachman (presented by Bill Davidson) – Lynn Canal
• Andy Piston – escapements and McDonald Lake update
• Eric Prestegard – DIPAC
• Lon Garrision – NSRAA
• Susan Doherty – SSRAA
• Bob Gubernick – USFS (information about stream rehabilitation program)

Discussion/Questions during presentations:

Tree Point – concern was expressed about Canadian interception of enhanced Nakat chums.  Bo:  It’s not a treaty issue but there was a suggestion to ask the Canadians for more data about harvests.

POW/Stikine – Discussion issue #3—there was no mid-week opening in District 8 during week 29, the first week of McDonald Lake sockeye conservation under the Action Plan.  Scott: sockeye harvests were declining, and there was concern over the Tahltan harvest being over the TAC.  Harvest wound up just slightly over the AC.  Troy: week 29 is getting into the end of the Tahltan run and into the mainstem run.  A suggestion was made about uncoupling D6 & D8 fishing times.  Scott explained that McDonald is not driving D8, the Stikine sockeye determined by the Stikine Management  Model based on Kakwan CPUE early/mark-recapture later determines openings.  There is not a problem with timeliness of the data or cooperation with Canadians.  Troy further explained uncoupling could lead to loss of stock composition data due to boat movement between districts. There was a question about if the large number of DIPAC chums caught in D6 was due to a sampling issue by sampling boats that came down from D11. This wasn’t an issue with mixed loads, samplers would not sample mixed fish and it was early in the years when there is not much boat movement between the D11 & D6.

• District 111 2009 Traditional Drift Gillnet Fishery – Taku Inlet and Stephens Passage – 4 meg *.pdf
• 2009 Gillnet District 1 Tree Point Drift Gillnet Fishery – Bo Meredith, Assistant Area Management Biologist, ADF&G – 761 kB *.pdf
• 2009 Southeast Alaska Salmon Escapement Summary – 148 kB *.pdf
• 2009 Lynn Canal District 15 Commercial Drift Gillnet Fishery Summary and Outlook for 2010 – 2.5 meg *.pdf
• 2009 District 6 and 8 Drift Gillnet Fishery Summary – 2 meg *.pdf