AC chairman Frank Woods says vote is a starting point to refine how and when to fish the Wood River in the Nushagak District.
At last week’s Nushagak Fish and Game Advisory Committee meeting, the members voted 8-2 in favor of a proposal to eliminate the Wood River Special Harvest Area. KDLG’s Dave Bendinger has more:
Transcript from audio below ...
The Wood River tends to produce a lot more sockeye than the Nushagak, roughly a 3-to-1 difference on average. Fish and Game can open the Wood River Special Harvest Area to allow for more district fishing if escapement is doing fine in the Wood but is struggling in the Nushagak, says Fish and Game Area Manager Tim Sands:
"That allows us to still harvest fish. So it allows for economic opportunity without doing biological damage to the Nushagak stock," said Sands.
It’s been used on seven occasions since 1993, according to Fish and Game records, and last year was an optional fishery first for the drift fleet, then for the set netters, then back to the drift fleet.
During that time, the district as a whole never closed or slowed, and as an optional fishery the Wood River was much less crowded than in years past. Still, despite constant fishing in the district and in the Wood River, 2.7 million sockeye made it past the Wood's counting towers. That's 1.2 million more than the top end of the escapement goal.
Despite the river's tendency to over-escape, the Nushagak AC will ask the Board of Fish to take the Wood River Special Harvest Area off the books as a management tool for the district. Frank Woods is the AC’s chairman:
"I agreed to shut 'er down until we figure out how to adequately regulate that Special Harvest Area the way it was intended. Or it might be that its needs have changed, but you know it's not a tool that management can use for a select handful of beneficiaries," said Woods.
The AC feels the some portions of the set net fleet in the Nushagak District benefit more than other set or drift net fishermen, especially those who get the first few sites.
(A full disclosure here that this reporter commercially fished as a set netter at site three in the Wood River for several weeks last season when it was open as an optional fishery.)
Some, like those who fish at Ekuk Beach, say the Wood River is particularly difficult for them to fish, as it’s a long haul to get there, they don’t have a market nearby, and many don’t have adequate boats to fish from.
Some drifters at the AC said they feel set netters catch too many fish in the Wood River in general, even though drifters are now offered three openings to every one for set netters.
Frank Woods says what he would like is more public input to clarify how and when the Special Harvest Area in the Wood River should be used. Although the AC’s proposal passed last week and will now ask the Board of Fish to eliminate the WRSHA, Woods isn’t sure that’s what the AC will actually recommend come the Board’s December meeting on Bristol Bay:
"This is just a proposal before the Board of Fish to address the Wood River Special Harvest Area, in my opinion. We really need to work at getting this right the first time, and not having to go back and redo it."
Woods says he would like to plan some public hearings between now and the AC’s next meeting in October. The Board of Fish meeting on Bristol Bay is scheduled to begin November 30 in Anchorage.
Contact the author of this article at dave@kdlg.org or by calling 907-842-2200.