Happy New Year Gillnetters and Gillnet Supporters!
BOF. It will be a BIG start to the new year as the Board of Fisheries meets in Sitka, Jan 10-23 to make BIG decisions about your business. We expect this meeting to be contentious so USAG board members will be in Sitka voicing support/concern for the many issues on the table. We will be there participating in the entire process on your behalf, serving USAG members and the fleet. Attend if you can to help us protect our fishing rights and to ultimately keep dollars in your pocket! Please check in with us if you plan to attend.
To get ready for this important meeting, USAG wrote proposals and submitted comments to all the pertinent proposals before the Board, including stock status and action plans (stocks of concern) for McDonald Lake sockeye and Chilkat and King Salmon Rivers kings. Use this link to view ‘on-time public comments’ under ‘meeting documents’; USAG’s start on page 568. Yes, this is a large document and there is a lot to consider —and potentially a lot for us to lose in fishing time and area. Other comments to check out are the seiners (SEAS) starting on page 454, fishermen’s alliance (SEAFA), page 437, trollers (ATA), page 16, and more. Also see ‘staff comments’ just below under ‘department reports’. To understand the Alaska Board of Fisheries process, click here and especially here where it says ‘Training Opportunity’ in the first section.
We hope to see you in Sitka in a couple weeks! If you cannot attend in person you can listen online; that link will be available on the same main meeting page (link above) by about Jan 10. If this is all just way too much for you to tackle right now, we understand! Support us with your dollars, especially if you are not a current member, because USAG is working to keep as many dollars in your pocket as possible and this meeting is too important to our livelihoods for USAG to miss.
Hope you all have a prosperous, safe 2018!
-Cynthia Wallesz
Executive Director
United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters
PO Box 2196
Petersburg, AK 99833
(208) 995-7400 (cell)
ph: (253) 237-3099 Google Voice
https://www.akgillnet.org/
usag.alaska@gmail.com