Dipnetting 101 — Proposal would institute mandatory dipnetter education

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter file photo by Patrice Kohl. Dipnetters at the mouth of the Kenai River brave hazy air in search of salmon this summer.

Redoubt Reporter

The results of the personal-use dipnet fishery on the Kenai Peninsula are a stark contrast in opposites. Tens of thousands of Alaskans fill their freezers with low-cost, healthy salmon meat. At the same time, beaches are trashed; private property is trespassed on, used as a latrine and even set on fire; fragile, ecologically sensitive sand dunes and beach grass are trampled and destroyed; management resources are stretched thin; and area residents’ patience is frayed to the limit.

In order to preserve the benefits of the former, a dipnetter from Eagle River is calling on fellow personal-use fishery users to prevent the latter.

“I believe that we do need to take steps to police ourselves before others either police us or eliminate us,” said Steve Rasmussen, of Eagle River, who has been fishing in the Kenai and Kasilof river dipnet fisheries for several years. “I think that, as a group, we’ve become that big of a problem. Although I’ll stress that it’s very few individuals I think that are, quote unquote, the problem. While the great majority of dipnetters are very law-abiding and very respectful, there’s a few, I guess you’d say bad apples, that I think are endangering it for all of us.”

Rasmussen plans to submit a proposal to the Board of Fisheries that would require most dipnetters take a test before being allowed to fish. He proposes the test be presented as an educational tool and not be difficult to pass. Questions would be meant to inform dipnetters about the social responsibility aspects of the fishery — like protecting sand dunes and beach grass, carrying out trash and staying off private property — rather than regulations.

Rasmussen has taught hunter education classes for nearly 10 years, including being a volunteer instructor for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and equates his idea for dipnetter education to the hunter education program.

“The rules are pretty common sense, they’re pretty straightforward. There’s a couple of detailed ones that you actually do have to learn, like recording your catch and clip the fins before they go in the cooler, but other than that I think it’s all common sense so far as dipnetting, and yet it’s not happening,” Rasmussen said. “And so the problem to solve seems to me to be 99.9 percent the exact same problem that hunting had to solve, and it made a huge dent in it through the hunter ed effort. So I propose a similar solution to a similar problem.”

Hunting was plagued with unsafe and unethical behavior before hunter education was required, Rasmussen said. The mandatory focus on the simple, common-sense tenets of safe and ethical hunting significantly helped the problem, he said.

“The hunter education program has made a tremendous improvement. I don’t think there’s a single person in the world who would dispute that. The numbers speak for themselves. Lives are saved, hunter ethics have improved, there is more compliance with the laws and rules,” Rasmussen said. “There’s a lot of statistics kept that are pretty indisputable that it has made a difference. Probably 15 or 20 years ago, opening day of hunting in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, they just assumed 20 people were going to get shot. I mean, seriously. And hunter ed has changed that.”

While lax attention to dipnetting rules aren’t resulting in deaths, Rasmussen said he fears it could result in limitations on the fishery.

“I talked to some people who live down there (on the peninsula), and some are more tolerant of it than others. I wonder how much tolerance I would have if I lived right on the beach there with some of the things they put up with. Some of the stories are truly appalling, and the newspaper articles that are describing it, the city of Kenai is at its wits end on how to just provide basic services in the midst of a few people’s actions,” Rasmussen said.

He said dipnetter education could help because it would make anyone not aware of the rules know what they should and shouldn’t do, it would reinforce the importance of following the rules for those who already know them, and it would make it more acceptable for fellow dipnetters to encourage others to do the right thing.

“When you’re down there on the beach, I don’t think there’s enough and proper peer pressure, and I do believe that hunter ed has improved peer pressure. It makes it easier for the guy to say, ‘Hey, I’d be more comfortable if, while we’re walking through the woods, your muzzle was pointing the other way.’ That’s a more acceptable thing to say to your hunting buddy that hunter ed teaches us. Down there on the beach, I don’t think that people verbalize it. I think people see things that happen that just aren’t right and they don’t say anything.

“It’s easy to say that education is not going to help anything because either a person already knows it or is not going to listen. I mean, that’s an easy thing to say, but with hunter ed, that hasn’t been the case. The hunter ed course boils down to a few simple rules that everyone should know about, yet it has caused improvement.”

Redoubt Reporter file photo by Jenny Neyman. A truck drives over sensitive sand dunes and beach grass at the mouth of the Kasilof River this summer.

Rasmussen said he envisions the program being conducted as an online test, with no classroom time or live instructors required. Fish and Game could get the same company that created the online portion of its hunter education courses to create a dipnet education test. Dipnetters would pay to take the test, perhaps $15 to $30, just like hunters support the cost of the hunter education program by paying for the classes.

“I don’t think anyone other than dipnetters should pay for this, period. It has to tread water on its own,” Rasmussen said.

Since proposing the idea, he’s gotten some negative response to it, especially over the idea of requiring experienced dipnetters to take the test in order to continue an activity they’ve been doing for years.

“I have received a little bit of resistance, not heavy resistance so far, but the effort is new and the day is young,” Rasmussen said. “Right now I’ve been a little, probably overly preoccupied with protecting the resource, and I need to give dipnetters their due, as well. And I have a couple of things I can add that I think will make it easier for existing dipnetters that are well aware of the law to be troubled less by what I’m proposing. It’s good input. I’m glad I kind of came above ground before I submitted it.”

Experienced dipnetters could be excluded from having to take the test, Rasmussen said. He’s also heard concern over the requirement possibly limiting people’s ability to fish. Not so, he said. For one thing, all the areas of the state that allow dipnetting have communities with public libraries and Internet access nearby where dipnetters could take the test if they don’t have a computer of their own.

And as for people just showing up wanting to fish without taking the test, maybe it’s a good idea they be restricted from doing so, Rasmussen said.

“My answer there is, you know what? This might upset them and it might cause them trouble. They might not be able to do their activity. Just like if you said tomorrow you want to go hunting but the hunter ed card stood in your way. That’s a proper obstacle. That kind of person that goes dipnetting on a whim and doesn’t know any of the rules, that’s probably the problem that we’re trying to solve here,” he said.

The idea came through discussions with Ken Federico, of Wasilla, founder of the South Central Alaska Dipnetters Association, through the online Alaska Outdoors Forum. Federico said he’s afraid dipnetting will be restricted or curtailed if the situation doesn’t improve. As it is now, dipnetters get a lot of blame and bad press for the unsanitary and destructive situations that occur, especially at the Kenai and Kasilof fisheries, Federico said. He said the state should step up with more enforcement and more services, but dipnetters can also help the situation by being better behaved, even if it is only a small fraction of fishermen causing the problems, he said.

“One percent of the dipnetters are pigs, but that’s with any group. That’s people. I don’t want a backlash. I don’t want to lose dipnetting, is what it comes down to,” Federico said. “I know the Board of Fish deals with allocation, they don’t deal with social issues, but something’s got to happen. People in their backyards in Kenai and Soldotna, I know they like the financial benefits (of people in town for dipnetting), but I also know how it’s like getting slammed. When I go down to Kenai, it’s unbelievable. In July, it’s like a circus atmosphere, is what it is. I just don’t want to see dipnetting getting cut off because of the bad publicity of a couple people.”

Education could help, he said.

“It might be 5 or 10 percent of the people out there that don’t know about traipsing on the dunes. So that’s what I’m trying to do, is just raise awareness. It’s a reminder, ‘Hey, people, pick up your crap when you go. If you’re going to haul it in, haul it out. Be a little considerate of others. Don’t just leave piles of garbage out there for the next person to trip over the next weekend,’” he said.

But Federico was hesitant to propose the Board of Fisheries institute a mandatory test. He’s heard backlash from dipnet permit vendors, dipnetters and Fish and Game, which doesn’t want to deal with the additional hassle of managing a test.

“A lot of people don’t like this as mandatory testing. It may be something we want to do more voluntary, but like I said, I’m just doing this to raise awareness,” Federico said.

Rasmussen, who joined SCADA a month ago, said he is planning on submitting the proposal, to at least get the idea out there.

“The Board of Fish put together this process so that concerned citizens could start a conversation, not so that concerned citizens could approach local organizations, get them to reach consensus, get all the little bugs worked out and then propose this. The Board of Fish wants proposals from individuals, and they may not be 100 percent fleshed out, they may not be 100 percent correct, there might be mistakes in here that others are going to help me fix. But I want to start the conversation,” Rasmussen said.

Kenai call for action

Kenai City Manager Rick Koch said a dipnetter education program may be a step in the right direction, and agreed that a minority of fishermen cause the majority of egregious problems.

“I think with almost all things that’s correct, not just our fishery. I think most individuals in most activities, they want to do the right stuff. I think he’s probably correct in that statement,” Koch said.

But he doesn’t expect education to solve the annual, mounting problems the city of Kenai struggles with in managing the state-mandated fishery as numbers of participants continue to climb.

This year saw more dipnet fishermen then ever at the mouth of the Kenai in July, from 13,000 to 15,000 in one day, Koch said. At one point in the summer, more dipnet permits had to be printed up because vendors ran out.

“It’s astronomical growth. A day was 30 percent higher than any other highest day, and we couldn’t do anything. There were too many people to empty the outhouses. We had to come in with a helicopter for a man having a heart attack. The mass of humanity was very, very difficult to try to do the jobs we’re trying to do down there,” he said.

Biologists may point out that fishermen don’t all have to cram into the same area at the mouth of the river, that they could fish as far as three miles up the beach. But the reality is most do congregate at the mouth, Koch said, and there’s currently no regulatory or legal way to stop them from doing so.

Yes, the city makes money off the fishery, by charging parking fees and through increased sales taxes as fishermen shop, eat at restaurants and buy gas in town. But the increase in fishermen also means increased costs to provide the services that are crucial to keeping the beach from being trashed — garbage and latrine services, parking attendants, police presence, fencing around sensitive dune areas, cleanup, etc.

Dipnetter education may help keep people off the dunes or from throwing fish carcasses in the river, where they just wash back up onshore, but it won’t address the larger issues, Koch said.

“I do think, in a real global sense, the state needs to do some research on what the carrying capacity is at the mouth of the Kenai,” Koch said. “There’s a number of things. It may be that we can’t have everybody show up on the same day. Maybe there’s some procedure of even-numbered days or odd-numbered days or something, so just the sheer volume of participants don’t arrive all on one day. Definitely sanitation and health issues, with all the waste that’s there, that needs to be addressed. And the state might be surprised to find out the number of salmon taken in the fishery. I think all of these things need to be looked at. But there’s no magic bullet. As with most difficult issues, I don’t think there ever is.”

Kasilof conundrum

More people dipnet at the mouth of the Kenai, but even less services, enforcement presence, resources and oversight are available for the ones who do fish the Kasilof personal-use setnet and dipnet openings.

Photo courtesy of Mike and Patti Curry. Discarded trash, toilet paper and salmon carcasses litter the woods on the north beach of the Kasilof River during the dipnet fishery.

Adam Smith, Southcentral regional natural resource manager for the state Division of Mining, Land and Water, which has jurisdiction over the mouth of the Kasilof River, said dipnetter education may not hurt, but it probably wouldn’t make a meaningful improvement in the situation at the Kasilof.

“My initial reaction is, it is a good intention, but it does not get to the heart of this management issue, which is a lack of a long term management solution and basic sanitation facilities to deal with the land use impacts associated with these fisheries,” Smith said.

The Southcentral region of Mining, Land and Water covers 64 million acres, and has just 34 people to manage it, Smith said. The division’s budget does not include specific funding to manage the dipnet fishery, so they end up scraping together whatever money they can to pool with the Kenai Peninsula Borough to provide the limited services that are available — Dumpsters and a few Porta Potties at the north and south beaches of the Kasilof. It’s gotten so bad that the state granted the Kasilof Historical Society permission to move the historic cannery Watchman’s Cabin to save it from being further trashed. Area residents expressed hope that the now-vacant plot of land would be developed into a managed campground, but that’s not currently the plan, Smith said.

The Kasilof situation may be even worse next summer.

“Due to our budgetary constraints, we do not have specific funding for Porta Potties and Dumpster,” Smith said.

Other management agencies that have jurisdiction over the Kasilof fishery — Alaska State Troopers and Fish and Game, also suffer from large areas to cover and lack of resources to do it effectively.

The lack of resources is what really needs to be changed, Smith said.

“It just seems like without addressing the larger issue, which is the onsite management of these fisheries, a test to see if somebody’s educated, that’s a good intention, but if there’s not available methods for people to dispose of their waste or garbage and stuff, it’s kind of a weaker point to me,” Smith said. “Down there, basically, there’s not enough infrastructure or sanitation facilities for people to use. On top of that, there’s no funding, and that is the biggest problem to deal with.”

Several management options have been suggested, such as bringing in a private contractor to run a campground and charge for camping and parking, or switching jurisdiction to state Parks. But no matter who is responsible for managing the fishery, money is needed to do it. Smith said the Legislature either needs to make more funding available, or dipnetters will need to foot the bill, perhaps by having an additional fee associated with dipnet permits and harvest cards.

Informing dipnetters not to trash dunes or leave garbage on the beach may not hurt, but Smith said the education he really wants to see is of the general public, to make them aware that they need press the Legislature if they really want the dipnet situation to change.

“If Alaskans feel strongly about this issue, they need to become more involved and advocate for these fisheries to have more onsite management to reduce impacts to the surrounding resources,” he said,” he said.