Meetings past and future, Fish Access and more

6 Dec

No kings. Today Fish & Game announced there will be no directed fisheries in early May for Districts 8 and 11. Read the full announcement here.

Meetings. Last week’s meetings went well with USAG’s annual meeting on Monday, Gillnet Task Force on Tuesday and Joint Regional Planning Team (RPT) Wednesday. Thanks to those that stopped by the USAG annual meeting! At Gillnet Task Force, we saw the biologist’s post season gillnet reports and asked them questions. You can view those reports on our website under ‘Industry Information’, and ‘Gillnet Task Force Presentations’. Thanks also to those of you that participated in RPT in person and via phone! RPT’s voting members unanimously supported the Thomas Bay, which means they will recommend to the Commissioner of Fish and Game to allow the release of 40 million chum from Hidden Falls in Thomas Bay. At full production, this project has the potential to have an annual ex-vessel value of about 4 million dollars to the region’s common property salmon fisheries. We posted F&G’s Thomas Bay baseline study from last summer on our website and NSRAA’s report under ‘Industry Information’ and ‘Hatchery, Rotations, Allocations’. The next Gillnet Task Force meeting is in Ketchikan, Nov 28, 2017; RPT is the next day.

Local Gillnet Meetings. Expect your local USAG Board members to conduct port meetings in the coming month or two in Juneau (Lars Stangeland and Dan Pardee), Ketchikan area (Shaun Haseltine), and Puget Sound (BJ King). Petersburg (Max Worhatch) will have one tomorrow, Tues, at 9am in the Icicle conference room, and Wrangell (Chris Guggenbickler) had one today. These meetings are open to all gillnetters regardless of USAG membership status. Contact the board members or myself for particulars.

Fisheries Access. This is a growing concern of folks throughout the state and will include legislation this session. We are concerned how this will affect our businesses and are watching closely. This book, Fisheries Access for Alaska, is a compilation from a 2-day workshop from last January. You can download a free copy from the link, or buy a paper copy, or go to our website under ‘Industry Information’ and ‘Fish Biz, Sea Grant’.

Transboundary. Things are going well at KSM’s Deep Kerr deposit near the headwaters of the Unuk River and they are ready to expand. In the three years since its discovery, Deep Kerr has taken its place among the world’s largest undeveloped gold-copper deposits.

Thanks for your support,
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