King season starts with a snag — Catch-and-release restrictions in place as early run begins

Fishing restrictions announced:

• From May 16 through June 30 from the Kenai River mouth upstream to Skilak Lake, and in the Moose River from its confluence with the Kenai upstream to the Sterling Highway bridge, king salmon 20 inches or greater in length and less than 55 inches in length may not be possessed or retained, may not be removed from the water, and must be released immediately. Harvest of king salmon less than 20 inches or greater than 55 inches in length is still allowed.

• From July 1 to July 14 in the Kenai from Fish and Game regulatory markers approximately 300 yards downstream from the mouth of Slikok Creek upstream to the outlet of Skilak Lake and in the Moose River from its confluence with the Kenai upstream to the Sterling Highway bridge, king salmon 20 inches or greater in length and less than 55 inches in length may not be possessed or retained, may not be removed from the water and must be released immediately. Harvest of king salmon less than 20 inches or greater than 55 inches in length is still allowed.

• Use of bait is not allowed in the Kenai River from the regulatory markers 300 yards downstream from the mouth of Slikok Creek upstream to the outlet of Skilak Lake, and in the Moose River from its confluence with the Kenai to the Sterling Highway bridge.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

Ker-plunk.

Rather than that being the hopeful sound of a lure hitting the water, it more represents the sinking feeling among anglers that the king salmon fishing season on the Kenai River is already off to a poor start, before it even opens Thursday. On May 9, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced restrictions to catch-and-release and trophy fishing only in the Kenai.

According to the department, the restrictions are being put in place to conserve the early run and help it meet its Board of Fisheries-mandated optimal escapement goal of 5,300 to 9,000 fish. The preseason forecast for the early run estimates a total of about 5,300 fish, which would put it on par with the lowest runs measured in 28 years — similar in abundance to the scant 2012 early run, on which fishing was closed midseason last year. The estimate of 5,300 fish is less than half the size of the average run strength from 1986 to 2012 of 14,000 fish.

“There is little indication to date of a change in the low chinook production trend observed statewide. It is therefore prudent to start the early run fishery as catch-and-release until in-season data indicates some harvest can be allowed or, alternatively, further restriction is necessary to meet the (optimum escapement goal),” according to the emergency order issued May 9.

While bad news such as this is never welcome to anglers, it’s even less welcome, particularly to fishing guides, coming as it did just a week before the season opens.

“I think they should have announced it a lot earlier and not put the guide component in a bind like they did. They announced it the same week the fishery opens — that’s crazy. I just think it was handled poorly,” said Dwight Kramer, chair of the Kenai Area Fisherman’s Coalition.

He said he supports the department’s decision to enact restrictions, given that the department’s early run management plan calls for an optimum escapement goal of at least 5,300 fish, and the forecast is predicting only 5,300 fish.

“I’m all for conservation of the early run,” Kramer said. “They were already at the minimum escapement goal in the forecast before any harvest. So I think they were stuck — they had to do this.”

But Kramer questions why the department waited so long to announce the restrictions. The early run forecast was released April 17.

“That’s when they should have done it,” he said.

Troubled waters a head

Photo courtesy of Christine Cunningham. Christine Cunningham hauled this beauty from the deep during a fishing trip.

By Christine Cunningham, for the Redoubt Reporter

The captain scuffed around deck in his XTRATUFs. He sniffed over his boat as if he’d only know it by smell. He was like many sportfishing guides in Alaska who’d slept all winter and were waking up from hibernation with the bears. He talked a lot but only had one thing on his mind. If you didn’t have the same thing on your mind, you’d be in trouble. There were four of us who’d tagged along with him for his first trip of the season. It was a scouting trip for the Homer Winter King Salmon Derby.

“I don’t know if the toilet is going to work,” Captain announced.

“I put the blue stuff in it before winter,” he said, while taking out tackle. “Never know if anything’s going to work the first time out.”

A boat across the dock from us started up. The motors emitted a fog of success. We all watched.

“Lucky bastard,” Captain said.

I had to use the restroom, and I’d better do it before we left the harbor or else endure the stigma of being one of those people who actually uses a marine toilet.

The toilet on Captain’s boat was merely ornamental. That the boat contained an enclosed restroom was an advertised feature. A girlfriend recommended the boat, not for the potential success of the charter or the demeanor of the captain, but for the enclosed toilet. Should anyone aboard the boat make use of the feature, they must do it with skill and diplomacy. The captain had many times instructed guests on the proper use of the head. I’d taken a few notes over the years:

“No butts in head” is not a personality prerequisite for marine toilet use.

“Nothing should go in the toilet that has not gone through a person” does not mean you have to eat toilet paper if you want to use it.

“The water is calling” only refers to fishing, not marine toilets.

Whether seated or standing, brace yourself as if you were about to ride a bull for eight seconds because nothing says “story that will be retold in mixed company” like being the person who smells like a urinal the rest of the trip.

It would be better to wear Depends than use the marine toilet.

“Going down for a beer,” is one of the many acceptable euphemisms for using the toilet.

“Never used a marine toilet in 50 years,” is something men will sometimes say to impress each other.

A “midendeavor flush” is not a courtesy, it’s a mechanical necessity.

“Every bullet has your name on it.” The decision to use the toilet is yours alone. If you do not clean and replace parts, you will be specifically referenced for the rest of your life by the captain.

Don’t use a marine toilet unless: A, you are the person that maintains it; B, you have no shame; C, you want to be infamous.

“One time,” Captain said, “I was waiting in line at the launch. The boat is still on the trailer. And this 300-pound guy uses the boat toilet!”

The four of us all shook our heads.

Whet appetites to wet hooks — Fly Fishing Film Tour lands in Kenai

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

With a closure from May 1 through June 11, this is the spring doldrums of trout fishing on the Kenai River. Nothing for a diehard angler to do but prepare gear, practice skills and daydream.

And if you’re going to dream, why not dream big? Of escaping the hectic working world to the refuge of a quiet backcountry river system, of the thrill of chasing the jewel of California sea bass, of the adventure of plying the waters of a Bolivian jungle, or the excitement of enticing the strike of an aquatic tiger in the pristine jungles of northern Thailand.

 Those are just some of the escapes available in the 2013 Fly Fishing Film Tour, a compilation of fly-fishing footage shot on waters around the world.

“Trout season in this area closes from May 1 to June 11. We’re in that period right now and there’s not too much to fly fish for at the moment. So this is really going get people raring to go,” said Mark Wackler of Fishology Alaska, which is sponsoring a showing of the Fly Fishing Film Tour on Friday at the Kenai Visitors and Cultural Center in Kenai as a fundraiser for the newly formed Kenai Peninsula chapter of Trout Unlimited.

Wackler has been going to Anchorage to see F3T, as it’s called, for years, he said. After last year’s showing he got to talking with event organizers about what it would take to bring the tour to the Kenai Peninsula. A local host sponsor, was the answer.

“I decided to do it. It sounded fun and was coincidentally about that same time the TU group started to get organized, and I got involved in that, as well. It worked out perfectly as an event for the new TU chapter here on the peninsula,” he said.

Films are submitted from all over the world for inclusion in the tour, including from Alaska. The Kenai showing won’t include Alaska clips, though. There are a couple of packages to choose from in hosting a F3T showing, and Wackler couldn’t resist the option of including more exotic locales.

“I started thinking to myself, ‘One of things I really appreciate is seeing these fisheries that I don’t know anything about — one in Thailand, and all over the world. That’s one of the cooler aspects, being introduced to some fisheries that are not familiar,” he said.

Besides, anyone wanting information on fishing in Alaska, or particularly on the Kenai, needs only to ask around at the film showing, since it’s also meant as a social gathering.

“It’s a cool event. The atmosphere is fun, and beer for sale doesn’t hurt,” Wackler said.

Common Ground: Peculiarity of Patrick’s method

Photo courtesy of Christine Cunningham.
Patrick and William show off part of their ice-fishing catch.

By Christine Cunningham, for the Redoubt Reporter

The chances of catching fish were very, very small that day. So small, it was safe to say it could not be done. Not by me. According to my calculations, determined by faithfully logging all of my fishing occasions in a weather-resistant journal, then entering the data into fields in a database, which could be manipulated to determine patterns of success or failure, a fish could not be caught when the wind came out of the east.

Still, my nephews wanted to go fishing, and it wasn’t my fault that they picked a day with an easterly wind. Fishing parents often have contingency plans for the inevitable problem of disinterest. Plenty of snacks and a Plan B — sledding or ice skating, for instance. Under no circumstances was the Plan B to include matches or fire-building, their mothers told me.

“Not after last time.”

Since last time, all plans required clearance, so my Plan B was to bring hot chocolate. I forgot the hot chocolate.

Luckily, my 8-year-old nephew, Patrick, had only one plan. Within seconds of arriving at the lake he dropped his line down one of the holes I’d drilled. Before his dad could comment on the weather or his cousin, 9-year-old William, could choose a lure from the tackle box, Patrick was fighting his first fish. I tested the wind direction. It hadn’t changed.

UFA seeks legal action against KRSA — Commercial fishing group alleges sportfishing association eavesdropped on teleconference

Editor’s note: A call to the Kenai River Sportfishing Association office in Soldotna seeking comment was referred to Eldon Mulder, chair of KRSA. Mulder was unavailable for comment on this story by press time Tuesday.

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

United Fishermen of Alaska leadership says the organization is prepared to see the process through as it awaits response in pursuit of recourse to its allegations that someone at the Kenai River Sportfishing Association eavesdropped on a teleconference of a UFA board of directors meeting.

“We intend to follow it through to some sort of logical and final conclusion,” said Bruce Wallace, interim president of UFA, a commercial fishing trade association representing 34 member organizations in Alaska.

In a Feb. 12 press release, UFA announced that on Feb. 8 it “began the process of turning over information to the authorities with the expectation that a full investigation would be initiated.”

Wallace said that UFA’s lawyer has been in contact with the district attorney’s office in Juneau and was awaiting a response, with the realization that patience might be required as the DA’s office has a plate full of other matters.

“All I know for sure is it’s in an investigative phase,” Wallace said. “I expect this will take awhile to go through the office.”

UFA held a board of directors teleconference Jan. 17, with members calling in from around the state to discuss appointments to the Alaska Board of Fisheries, particularly recommendations for a vacancy which Gov. Sean Parnell filled Feb. 6 with the appointment of Fairbanks guide and charter operator Reed Morisky.

In a Jan. 31 letter to KRSA board members and chair, Eldon Mulder, also copied to the governor, Wallace alleges that, “We have since learned that about 20 minutes into our meeting, someone at the offices of Kenai River Sportfishing Association surreptitiously and without authorization joined the call and listened in on our discussion for approximately 70 minutes.”

Further, “We have also learned that information about the substance of our discussion during the teleconference was transmitted to the chair of the Board of Fisheries, who has since confirmed that he received ‘detailed information’ concerning the substance of our teleconference.”

In its Feb. 12 press release, UFA states that the teleconference vendor provided a phone log of the teleconference, which included a number registered to the KRSA headquarters in Soldotna. No one from that office or organization was invited to participate in the call, nor did anyone uninvited announce his or her entry to the teleconference.

“KRSA is not affiliated with UFA in any way. KRSA is not a member of UFA. KRSA was not invited by UFA to join the teleconference. The person or persons who listened in on UFA’s meeting from the KRSA offices did not acknowledge their presence when joining the teleconference,” the release states.

The teleconference phone number is sent to board members a few days before a meeting, Wallace said. Upon calling the number, participants enter a code to be connected to the teleconference.

“Clearly (KRSA) knew when the conference call was, knew what the phone number was and, more importantly than anything, knew what the conference access code was. It was obviously not as secure as it should have been,” Wallace said.

Ideas afloat — Kenai fishing task force hears plans to change management

By Jenny Neyman

File photo by Patrice Kohl, Redoubt Reporter. A stringer of sockeye salmon were fished from the Kenai River at River Bend. The Upper Cook Inlet Task Force is mulling ways to better balance management of the Kenai’s sockeye and king salmon returns and fisheries.

Redoubt Reporter

“There’s nothing worse than not fishing then having to go to meetings to talk about not fishing.”

That jest, from Jim Butler, a member of the Upper Cook Inlet Task Force, drew chuckles from the crowd assembled for the Jan. 14 meeting at the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska in Kenai. Though it was a fitting sentiment for the six hours of detailed, science-heavy, acronym-laden discussion, the trumping sentiment of the day was one of progress.

“I think this is a starting point. It’s trying to make the best of Armageddon, if there’s a way to do that,” said task force member Ken Coleman, a set-net fisherman. “… We are trying to make sure there’s a place in the sun for both of us. How do we achieve that is the art of the deal. We’re heading that way, I think.”

Three proposals to change fishery management plans for the 2013 fishing season were submitted for discussion. Each aim to prevent 2013 from being a repeat of the disastrous fishing season of 2012 — with sport and set-net fisheries shut down — should similar factors of a late and/or low king return amid a robust sockeye run again be the case.

East Side Set-Net Proposal

The set-netters’ proposal suggests several changes to the Kenai River Late-Run King Salmon Management Plan, including:

Tackle the task — Fishing representatives mull changes to prevent repeat of poor 2012 season

By Jenny Neyman

File photos. Sockeye salmon wait to be picked from a set net in one of the few openings for east-side, Kenai-area Cook Inlet commercial set-net fishermen last summer.

Redoubt Reporter

There was no lack of data, analysis, statistical models, facts, figures and hypotheses presented at the second meeting of the Upper Cook Inlet Task Force on Jan. 14 at the Challenger Learning Center of Alaska in Kenai.

But for the six hours of answers and information, the main question driving the creation and effort of the task force remains unanswered: If the 2013 Kenai River king and sockeye runs shape up similarly to the 2012 returns, how can the disastrous fishing season that unfolded last year be avoided in the coming one?

While nothing has been settled yet, an answer is coming closer. Work this meeting was advanced by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s recent release of its new late-run Kenai River king salmon escapement goal, recommending 15,000 to 30,000 fish be spared from hooks and nets to get upriver to spawn.

The report still is in a draft form undergoing peer review and the revision process, and it’s only an interim figure to be used until the goal comes up for review and revision to the Alaska Board of Game in 2014, in accordance with its regular three-year cycle.

But it represents progress, especially in times of low abundance of kings, as has been the trend in recent years, said Robert Clark, chief fisheries scientist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who gave a presentation on the updated escapement recommendation.

“We need to manage carefully because runs are going to be small in the near term — they just are, it’s a certainly. But this analysis is a breakthrough from our old assessment. Now I think we have a way forward,” he said.

The new goal was developed using king count estimates generated with DIDSON sonar technology, seen as far more accurate than the previously used target-strength estimates produced by split-beam sonar technology. Split beam has been shown to confuse smaller kings with sockeyes, especially when both fish are mixed together in the river. The previous goal range of 17,500 to 35,000 fish was developed using the old sonar estimates. The department switched to using DIDSON technology exclusively at the king sonar site at mile 8.6 last year, but was still using the old escapement goal. Now a DIDSON-based escapement will be tracked with DIDSON sonar.

Keeping better count of the fish is only part of the battle. Deciding how to manage fisheries is the other.

“This 15,000 is our best guess that balances the risk of the fisheries — keeping fisheries viable and going — and balancing that against the risk to the stock in terms of overfishing,” Clark said.

That balancing act was particularly difficult under a perfect storm of factors contributing to the maelstrom that became the 2012 Kenai River fishing season. A low early run of Kenai kings in June and poor returns of kings elsewhere in the state raised a red flag that the Kenai late run of kings might also be low. Further supporting that concern was a late arrival of the late run. Meanwhile, a robust return of sockeyes streamed into the river while kings were merely trickling in.

The result was restrictions in the sport and personal-use fisheries on retention of kings, then an all-out in-river closure on king fishing. That triggered a closure of the area’s commercial set-net fishery for sockeye, in order to prevent kings from getting caught in the commercial nets. When it became clear that kings were late more than nonexistent, governing management didn’t allow for creative solutions to address the unusual situation. Save for a few, mostly unproductive openings, the set-netters lost their season, sport fishermen lost much of their Kenai king fishing season and more sockeye than were desired made it upriver, all to protect kings that ended up making escapement.

“The problem with last year really wasn’t abundance, it was how the run showed up, and a lot of it showed up late. In those situations you try to do as a good a job as you can projecting those kinds of problems,” Clark said.

Common Ground: No contest — Laundry vs. anything outside

By Christine Cunningham, for the Redoubt Reporter

Photo courtesy of Christine Cunningham. Lake trout lie hidden in Hidden Lake —especially on windy winter days.

The day my fishing partner decided that enough time had gone by that we needed to go ice fishing happened to be on a day in which the wind was blowing about 45 mph and the temperature had risen to negative 20 degrees.

My personal views on ice fishing held that fish don’t much like the wind. I don’t know what goes on underwater in a wind, but based on the attention that gets paid to my lure by fish, my guess is that they are hanging on to a reed by their lips waiting out an underwater storm. But since fishing is better than ironing my clothes or washing my dishes, I decided to go anyway.

The road to Hidden Lake wasn’t all that bad. As long as we kept the speed of the vehicle to less than 10 mph and stayed in the middle of the road, there was every chance we’d make it to the lake.

The chances weren’t as good on making it back. But, those were the odds that we were willing to take in order to catch a lake trout and avoid domestic chores. When my life flashes before my eyes, as it did on the last downhill curve in the road to the lake, I certainly don’t want to have any images of myself ironing clothes. I’m just not that good at it.

From the parking lot it was clear to us that it wouldn’t be a good idea to drive out on the lake. Freeze and thaw conditions had created about a foot of overflow. We loaded up our sled with the barest of essentials. The hand auger, the ice scoop, our fishing rods, our spare fishing rods, tackle boxes, two camp chairs, my portable ice shanty, my propane heater, several extra cans of propane, a Thermos of coffee, a bottle of blackberry brandy, and, in my case, a book on the life and legend of Crazy Horse, who defeated Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Once the sled was hooked up to my fishing partner, we began the long walk to our favorite spot. Luckily, the wind was at our back and so my added weight in the sled was of little inconvenience.

New late-run Kenai king escapement goal ready for review

By Jenny Neyman

Redoubt Reporter

The new numbers are out, setting the goalposts to which the late run of Kenai River king salmon will be managed. Scientists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game recently released a draft interim escapement goal recommendation calling for 15,000 to 30,000 late-run kings to escape fishing nets and hooks to spawn in the Kenai. The new sustainable escapement goal is a decrease from the previous range of 17,800 to 37,500 kings.

The decrease doesn’t represent a change in philosophy or priority in what the goal is meant to achieve, said fishery scientist Steve Fleischman, who, along with Tim McKinley, authored the draft report. As with all salmon stocks in the state, late-run Kenai kings are managed to provide sustained yield, balancing conservation of the stock — getting enough fish upstream to spawn — and utilization of the resource by fishermen. The lower goal range represents a change in data, not a shift in priority toward stock conservation vs. fishery opportunity, Fleischman said.

“What’s changed is we feel that we have much better information than we’ve had before,” he said.

Fishing for answers — Department representatives hear comments from fishermen

By Jenny Neyman

Photos by Jenny Neyman, Redoubt Reporter. Ken Coleman, a commercial set-net fisherman, asks a question of a panel of state and NOAA representatives in Soldotna on Friday to answer questions about a federal economic disaster declaration regarding low king returns to Cook Inlet this summer. Representatives from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game also spoke with the 100-plus audience, at the meetings hosted by the Kenai Peninsula Fishermen’s Association.

Redoubt Reporter

Representatives from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game got what they asked for in a public meeting hosted by the Kenai Peninsula Fishermen’s Association on Friday at Peninsula Grace Brethren Church on Kalifornsky Beach Road.

“This is a great opportunity for me to speak to you, but also to hear from you about your questions and concerns,” said Cora Campbell, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Campbell, along with Jeff Regnart, Division of Commercial Fish, and Charlie Swanton, Division of Sport Fish, spent two hours being peppered with questions and emotionally charged statements from the crowd, particularly regarding the closure of sportfishing for king salmon in the Kenai and Kasilof rivers this summer, and the subsequent closure of the east-side Cook Inlet commercial set-net fishery for sockeye.

A caveat in the late-run Kenai king management plan requires the department to close commercial sockeye set netting if in-river king fishing is shut down due to low king runs, a measure passed by the Board of Fisheries intended to spare kings from set nets in order to boost escapement in the rivers.

Several in the audience questioned the wisdom and fairness of that requirement. Department representatives acknowledged that this method of protecting kings lacks finesse.

“It’s a very blunt tool,” Campbell said of that provision of the management plan. “But it indicates that if we’re projecting that we’re not going to meet escapement for late-run Kenai kings, that the in-river fishery closes and the set-net fishery closes. That was something that the Board of Fish adopted years ago. That’s what the management plan directs us to do.”

Regnart was asked if he thought the plan was an effective way of managing the fisheries in season. It gets the job done, he said, though the consequences can be steep.

“It does it in a way that can be quite difficult. Everybody here in this room felt the weight of that plan this year. As the commissioner described, it’s a blunt tool. It’ll get the job done, so I guess my answer to this would be yes, but it does it in a way that the users can pay a very high price,” he said.

Common Ground: Mocha mettle — Brewing interest in outdoors supplants need for convenience, comfort, fancy coffee

By Christine Cunningham, for the Redoubt Reporter

A friend once told me that she never wanted to live a life where she couldn’t have a mocha every day. This would limit her in several ways, I thought. She’d either be forced to live in areas populated enough to support an espresso culture, or she would have to invest in a professional-grade machine that could exert enough pressure to yield an ounce of liquid in 18 to 26 seconds. If she wanted to be entirely self-sustaining, she’d have to get a cow.

As she was sipping her mocha from a paper cup, I guessed it was the former of the two options. “I think I could go without a mocha for a few days,” I said.

“How many days?” she asked.

When I was 19, the thought of not having a mocha every day was a bit frightening. Especially since I worked at a coffee shop and required seven shots of espresso to achieve a baseline. I pondered her question.

“I guess two days,” I said. “A week at the most.”

This answer only applied to professionally crafted mochas by certified baristas. If I had to get a cow so that I could have a mocha, I wanted the opportunity to change my answer.

Old Duck Hunter: Wild times in the wilderness — Wouldn’t have it any other way

By Steve Meyer, for the Redoubt Reporter

Wild places are supposed to kick one’s butt. Go into an untamed wilderness, have just a bit of bad luck and hang on — you will likely end up rolled around and stomped on, cold, sick, miserable and otherwise in awe of the nature world that, sans human influence, has no sympathy. It’s what keeps the few wild places we have left still wild.

Before a bout with a physical malady that took the wind out of my sails for a time, I had spoke of going to Western Alaska for a fishing trip, the first time I would invade that part of Alaska. My fishing partner and I had taken an offer of a float trip down an unnamed river that would lead us to the world-famous Goodnews River.

We were to break new ground in a couple of ways. One, going where virtually no one had gone before, and, two, doing it in the equivalent of rubber ducks for transportation. The tiny rafts we would use were the size of a small bathtub, and while very tough, they were essentially like trying to paddle an inflated inner tube. But the float was believed to be a calm little river (I envisioned the Swanson River), and therefore just a matter of floating and fishing and enjoying the experience.

My fishing partner will tell you that I foreshadow difficulties, because she knows I don’t take to doing things in the out of doors the easy way. She thinks if things are going too well I create a circumstance that makes them harder, just because. She may be right. The outdoors, to me, has never been one of strolling down man-made trails or fishing from aluminum platforms or going through a park where the animals bear no resemblance to real wild animals. If it does not have a level of discomfort and difficulty, there is no point.