You are hereChitina Dipnet King Closure
Chitina Dipnet King Closure
Once again we are on the short end of the dip net. Today, June 4th, by emergency order, for the entire 2009 season, no king salmon can be kept as part of your Chitina dipnet bag limit. Meanwhile, the commercial fishery at Cordova is still fishing for king salmon. ADF&G says the dipnet king closure is a conservation decision to make sure there are enough kings to provide for upriver spawning escapement. It is our understanding that ADF&G will have a meeting to decide what restrictions will be needed for king sport fishing on the Gulkana and Klutina rivers. It appears for now that the only people who are looked at to protect the king salmon escapement are the "personal use" classified dipnetters and most likely sport fishermen.
As of this morning the Commercial Fish Division of ADF&G was going to have another commercial opening just off the mouth of the Copper River where a majority of the commercial king catch occurs (Editor's note: as several readers have commented, the intertidal areas, where most of the commercial king catch apparently takes place, have seen a reduction in fishing time to protect the fishery.). Subsistence fisheries above and below the Chitina dipnet boundary have taken no reduction in king bag limit. This is one reason why the Chitina Dipnetters Association has filed suit with the State of Alaska to return the dipnet fishery to subsistence status, giving it allocation priority over the commercial harvest of salmon.
If you value your ability to continue to harvest salmon in the dipnet fishery and put an end to being run over roughshod by commercial interests read of the lawsuit and donate what you can to see this suit to completion.
Who is the person or persons who changed the Chitina dipnetting from subsistance to personal use. They should be strung up by their ankles.
It seems to be OK for commercial fish personnel to get a large amount of kings as well as the people who have a fish wheel. Where is the justice or common sense in this matter.
Thank you Dipnetters Association for filing a law suit on behalf of the sport fisherman. I hope the judge rules in our favor.
As a dipnetter with 7 family members in my household, I can tell you firsthand that I rely on dipnetting for "subsistence". I sure am glad that I can no longer keep a King Salmon on my dipnet permit, but someone in the lower 48 will be dining on Copper River King Salmon that was caught by commercial fishing. At some point, ADF&G needs to stand up and support the local sport fishers/dipnetters, who in turn support them whenever purchasing a fishing license, dipnet permit, etc. As an Alaskan resident, born and raised, I feel I have more of a right to those fish than any commercial fishing outfit looking to turn a profit. I hope this does not cause a lack of business to the local charter service, (Hem and Sam's Charter). They are also dependent on Happy Alaskan Residents who would like to keep their fish. Please lift this ridiculous restriction, and allow local dipnetters to keep their 1 King Salmon, and also their faith that the state government is more concerned in protecting the rights of its citizens, than commercial fishing profits.
Everyone needs to help support Byron in helping preserve this incredible resource that we all enjoy. I reallize a lot of dipnetters are "independent" types but we need to get together on this. If they can cut the kings, they can cut the red bag limit.
Also I wanted to say that the website looks great.
I write this comment to correct misinformation. The commercial fleet has had a total of two 12 hour periods, 5/14 and 5/18 during which time the inside intertidal areas were open for fishing. As I am sure the writer knows, this is the area where most king salmon are caught, not "just off the mouth of the Copper River" as written in the king closure article. Since the first two commercial openers, the commercial fleet has not been permitted to fish inside waters. The purpose of the inside closures has been to protect the king return. In percentage terms the inside openers have amounted to 13% of the commercial fleet's fishing time this season, including the reduced time allowed for the Monday, June 8th opener.
The commercial fishery has been the first user group to face restrictions to protect the king run.
I believe that those who are gaining financial profit from their harvest of Copper River Chinook salmon, when they have contributed ZERO to the production and rearing of these fish, should be at the end of the barvest chain - i.e. they should be the last category of harvesters to receive an allocation and priviledge to harvest Chinook. My harvest of Chinook [and all salmon] is to provide food for my household. My harvest level is limited to what is considered to be a reasonable number of fish to sustain my personal needs. And I am personally harvesting and processing just about every single fish. The commercial fishery is a business operation, making a profit by harvesting large quantities of fish which they then turn around and sell to processors, who then sell to... The resource is supposed to be managed for the benefit of the residents of the State - when the Constitution says for economic benefit, that's what feeding myself is, and it doesn't mean for 'financial profit'. Subsistence and personal use fishing should have priority over out-of-state sport fishing and commercial fishing!
The kings must be protected so we should not even ask to catch them. The commercial fishery at the mouth of the copper shows that very few kings are caught during the month of June and July. The adf&g commercial fishing web page says that the commercials have had inside closures since the first 2 periods and the majority of the kings are caught inside.The commercial harvest is the lowest in forty years so they aren't catching them.
The major culprits here are the trawlers in the Bering sea who recently took 250,000 kings as by-catch and the fisheries( charter and sport)that take place up river from the dipnet fisheries near the spawning beds.
I think a lawsuit is a waste of time for two reasons. First it makes us look greedy for not wanting to protect the kings. Secondly the fishery is open to everyone in the state and the feds who run the subsistance fishery are not going to allow everyone in the state to have rural priority.
Instead of trying to catch the fish when the run is poor we should protect the resource and find out why the run is not showing. The fish have five years from when they hatch to when they return. The obstacles of a gillnet and dipnet do not wipe out a run.
I believe in managing the fishery for long term sustainability, so I don't mind not being able to keep the king(s) that find their way into my dipnet. But expecting dipnetters to foot the sustainability bill for the commercial users of the resource just ain't right. If the king return is so low dipnetters can't keep fish, it's low enough that nobody should be targeting kings.
I am a commercial fisherman. It is tiresome to hear the phrase "targeting kings" over and over when it is simply not true. Inside closures have prevented targeting kings since the second opener.
ADF&G has already stopped the targeting of kings by using inside closures. Have the Anchorage fish wheels been shut down? They catch a huge amount of Kings.