A stock of concern: Board of Fish to consider action plan for king salmon management

An action plan for Kenai River late-run king salmon, published by the State Department of Fish and Game last month, describes a variety of regulatory options for each of the fisheries and user groups that impact the stock — to be considered by the State Board of Fisheries at their meeting on Upper Cook Inlet Finfish next month.

The action plan is a response to an October move by the board that named Kenai River late-run king salmon a stock of management concern — defined by the department as a stock with “chronic inability” to maintain escapement within goals despite management action.

The department, in a memo to the board that recommended the classification, says that Kenai River late-run king salmon have failed to meet the board-set optimal escapement goal “in the four years that it has been in place.”

“The goal of this action plan is to rebuild the Kenai River late-run king salmon stock to levels that consistently achieve the board-established management objective and provide sustainable harvest opportunity,” the report reads.

In 2023, low projections for the late run of king salmon on the Kenai River prompted full-season closures of both the Kenai River king salmon fishery and the east side setnet fishery. The closures, in the form of 11 emergency orders issued in March, were based on a forecast of only 13,630 “large” king salmon — those longer than 34 inches — for the late run.

According to fish counts available from the department, around 13,900 king salmon were counted by sonar during the late run. That number exceeded the prediction, but only slightly, and only through the complete shutdown of multiple fisheries. The count still failed to meet the board-set optimal escapement goal of 15,000 salmon.

Described within the action plan are a “range of options” for regulations affecting both direct and indirect fisheries that impact the stock. Those options will be considered by the board at their Upper Cook Inlet Finfish meeting next month in Anchorage. The report says the board will need to weigh factors like how much of a reduction on king salmon exploitation is necessary, how the burden of conservation should be distributed among user groups, and how extensively fisheries should be restricted.

Matt Miller, the Cook Inlet Sport Fish coordinator for the department and one of three authors listed on the report, said Thursday that the plan is the department’s attempt to lay out all the options — the plan is not prescriptive of any action that will ultimately be taken, but should facilitate conversation between the board and the public at next month’s meeting and ultimately serve as a roadmap for those discussions.

For members of the public who are preparing comments and testimony for the upcoming board meeting, Miller said they should read through the report, look at each of the sections, and think about how changes should be mapped across all of the fisheries. None of the fisheries or user groups — sport, commercial, or personal use — can be considered in a vacuum. Everything is connected.

In addition to considering the conservation of king salmon, the options presented also seek to maintain harvest of abundant sockeye — a conversation Miller said is “intertwined.”

How the board will choose to interact with the plan is up to its members, Miller said. When the board considered an action plan compiled for Nushugak king salmon last year, the board used the plan to create a package of regulations addressing the stock. They could also just use the plan as a guideline as they vote proposals up or down.

Of well over 200 proposals set to be considered by the board at their meeting next month, many focus on Kenai River king salmon and the ESSN, both of which are covered in the plan.

Each of the options described in the action plan, the report says, “are allocative and do not indicate endorsement by the department.”

Sport Fisheries

The objective for king salmon sport fisheries, according to the report, is to reduce the mortality of Kenai River directed late-run king salmon. At the same time, the harvest of Kenai River sockeye should increase to reduce the likelihood of exceeding the biological escapement goal for the species.

The options presented for the Kenai River Late-Run Inriver Sport Fishery include proceeding at the status quo, restricting all king salmon fishing to nonretention, reducing the length of the season, allowing limited opportunity at certain projections of the runs below the OEG, closing the king salmon fishery entirely or removing bait from the August sport fishery.

Described in several options are allowing some opportunity with only nonretention of king salmon — catch and release — which the report says would allow for some opportunity but would result in some mortality of king salmon.

To increase harvest of sockeye salmon, a final option would increase the bag limit of sockeye to six per day and 12 in possession.

Each of these options comes accompanied with described projected benefits and detriments. Any change to any fishery will have different impacts to opportunity, mortality, harvest and the consistency of regulations.

Options for the Cook Inlet Marine Sport Fisheries read as very similar to the Kenai River sport fishery, including remaining at the status quo, modifying provisions of the Upper Cook Inlet Summer Salt Water King Salmon Plan, restricting king salmon fishing to nonretention, reducing the length of the season or the fishing area or closing the king salmon sport fishery entirely.

Commercial Fisheries

In commercial fisheries, like in the sport fisheries, the defined objective is the reduction of mortality for Kenai River late-run king salmon. To that end, one option is to remain at the status quo, which the report notes “has been effective at reducing the harvest of late-run Kenai River king salmon in the commercial fishery.”

For the ESSN, following the current management plan would maintain low exploitation on Kenai River kings, the report says, but will also result in foregone sockeye salmon harvest. Other options described include allowing different amounts of opportunity for the fishery when king salmon escapement is expected to exceed 13,500 large kings but still fall below the OEG of 15,000. These would create openings for commercial fishing in limited periods in restricted areas with restricted gear — the report does not describe what those periods, areas, or gear requirements should be.

Based on the 2023 preseason projection of 13,630 king salmon, and the final count available from the department of 13,922, these options seemingly would have allowed some opportunity for the ESSN this season had they been in effect.

Another option for the ESSN is to allow dipnets as legal commercial gear in Upper Cook Inlet and “create specified commercial dip net zones or times in the Kenai or Kasilof Rivers.” At the same time, this option would allow beach seines. Adding “nonlethal gear types,” the report says, would allow for harvest of sockeye salmon by commercial anglers while also allowing for the live release of kings. The report notes that dipnets “are a far less effective gear type for harvesting large numbers of sockeye salmon,” and that this option could also result in conflict between commercial and personal use anglers.

The final option presented is to close the fishery entirely until king salmon management objectives are met. This option would allow “consistent and predictable management that guarantees no mortality of Kenai River late-run king salmon in the ESSN,” but would also deny all opportunity and forego sockeye harvest. The department writes that the commercial fishery is “one of the department’s primary tools for controlling sockeye salmon escapement,” and that “sport and personal use fisheries under current management do not have the harvest capacity to control average to large Kenai and Kasilof River sockeye salmon runs.”

To address another objective of increasing harvest of Kasilof River sockeye salmon, a presented option would allow opening of the Kasilof River Special Harvest Area when the ESSN is otherwise closed for king salmon conservation to allow for targeting of Kasilof River sockeye. This would allow some opportunity and help control sockeye surplus, but the area is “small and difficult” for commercial anglers — the area also wouldn’t be available to all permit holders.

Options described for the Central District Drift Gillnet fishery are to remain at the status quo, to limit the fishery to fishing at least 2 miles from shore or to close the fishery in state waters.

The first option, to prohibit fishing within 2 miles of shore, would align “conflicting regulations” to make for more consistent and predictable management that also minimizes mortality of Kenai River late-run king salmon, but also “limits opportunity for commercial harvest of sockeye, chum, pink, and coho salmon for an unknown conservation benefit.”

The description of the other option, to close the state fishery entirely, reads much the same. The move would reduce king mortality “for an unknown conservation benefit,” but also eliminate harvest of sockeye and other salmon species.

Personal Use

For the Kenai River Dipnet Fishery, the report says that options are to remain at the status quo, to allow retention of small kings in the fishery, to fully prohibit retention of kings in the fishery and to restrict or close the fishery.

Allowing retention of small kings, the report says, would prevent citations for dipnetters who retain small kings and increase that harvest opportunity, but would also reduce the contribution of those smaller kings to production of the stock.

Similarly, a described detriment to restricting retention of king salmon in the fishery is the possibility of citations being issued to Alaskans who misidentify and retain a small king.

Restricting or closing the dipnet fishery would forgo harvest of sockeye salmon that are being harvested with gear that allows for selectivity, the report says, but would reduce harvest or mortality of king salmon.

To promote harvest of sockeye salmon, options are presented to increase the dipnet area and season lengths for the Kenai and Kasilof rivers. Both of these would allow for more sockeye harvest, but both could also create conflicts with other users, the report says.

Similarly, the Kasilof River Personal Use Set Gillnet Fishery could remain at status quo, see restricted length up to a complete closure, or a reduction in legal mesh size. Restricting the fishery would reduce king salmon mortality — the report says that the fishery “will harvest an unknown but likely small number” of Kenai River kings — but would also reduce sockeye harvest.

A stock of concern

In addition to the options described in the plan, the full report includes background information and “stock status” compiled by the department.

Background information provided in the report says that the late-run Kenai River kings were previously managed to a sustainable escapement goal of 13,500-27,000 large kings set when the “large”qualifier was established in 2017. In 2020, the board established their optimal escapement goal of 15,000-30,000 large kings, which supersedes the department’s still-existing sustainable escapement goal.

The Kenai River Late-run King Salmon Management Plan, which triggered the closures in 2023, is used by the department for “direction on actions to implement on sport, personal use, and commercial fisheries,” the report says, when department and board goals for the stock are not projected to be achieved.

That plan — and modifications to it — is described in many of the proposals to the board for the Upper Cook Inlet meeting, as well as in several of the options included in the report.

According to previous Clarion reporting, in March, when the fisheries were closed by the provisions of the plan in response to the low king salmon forecast, local anglers requested an emergency declaration by the board to reconsider the then-planned closure of the ESSN. Petitions submitted by the Kenai Peninsula Fishermen’s Association, the South K-Beach Independent Fishermen’s Association and Gary Hollier argued that a biologically allowable harvest of sockeye salmon would be precluded by delayed regulatory action.

The board rejected those requests, saying that the closure was not “unforeseen,” rather that the plans were working exactly as intended. Member John Jensen said “The department does put out preseason forecasts and they eventually manage to them … As we’re supposed to do, we have to manage for the weaker stock.”

The size of the run is monitored by the department using the sonar, as well as an inriver gillnetting program, a sport fishing creel survey, genetic sampling, radiotelemetry, and commercial harvest sampling, the report says.

The report suggests additional methods of monitoring the stock, including more catch sampling or tracking of juvenile and smolt king salmon via sonic tags. The report also recommends that study of selective harvest methods for fisheries like the ESSN should continue to be explored.

“Also, alternative gear types such as dip nets and beach seines should be evaluated,” the report says.

A study was conducted on a Kenai setnet site owned by Hollier last year, according to previous Clarion reporting, that explored the use of shallower nets to better target sockeye salmon while allowing king salmon to pass by. Though preliminary results have been published for the study indicating that 9,441 sockeye were caught at the same time as 50 king salmon — 20 of which were released — the department has not yet published an official analysis and has declined to comment on the results.

Declining king salmon returns have led the department to “repeatedly” use emergency order authority to reduce king salmon harvest, the report says.

While the king salmon abundance has been low, triggering closures of other fisheries, local sockeye salmon runs have far exceeded department goals. The sustainable escapement goal for Kenai River sockeye salmon is between 750,000 and 1.3 million, but the upper bound has been exceeded in each of the last four years — in 2023, around 2.4 million sockeye were counted by sonar.

“Attempting to keep abundant sockeye salmon escapement within SEG ranges requires liberal harvest, exactly the opposite of what weak king salmon management requires,” the report reads.

The king salmon management plan “limits the department’s ability to manage Kenai and Kasilof Rivers sockeye salmon runs,” the report reads, because the plan describes restrictions on commercial fisheries harvest potential that falls “below what would be necessary to achieve sockeye salmon goals.”

To see Kenai River late-run kings delisted as a stock of concern, the run would need to meet or exceed the optimal escapement goal — presently set at 15,000-30,000 large kings — in three consecutive years or four of six consecutive years while also being expected to continue to meet the goal range in future years, according to the report.

The action plan can be viewed in its entirety on the department’s website by visiting adfg.alaska.gov, included in the meeting information for the Upper Cook Inlet Finfish Meeting of the State Board of Fisheries under the “Regulations” tab. A direct link will be included in the web version of this story at peninsulaclarion.com.

The Upper Cook Inlet Finfish meeting will be held at the Egan Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage from Feb. 23 to March 8. The meeting will be livestreamed on the board’s website or at “Alaska Board of Fisheries” on YouTube. Comments can be submitted online until Feb. 8, or during public testimony at the meeting.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.