‘Evolve or die’

At a commercial setnet site outside Kenai this summer, fishers have been testing beach seines as an option to harvest target sockeye salmon without killing king salmon. On Tuesday, they said the seine nets haven’t killed a single king; that the nets are adaptable to different sites; and that they’ve been successful at catching enough sockeye to be economically viable.

Long-time setnetters Brian Gabriel and his wife, Lisa, are helming the effort. They’ve been looking for ways the east side setnet fishery could see opportunity at times of low king salmon abundance, Brian Gabriel said.

Beach seining, he said Tuesday, is an idea he and Lisa first considered a decade ago, when a statewide initiative threatened to eliminate setnets. That initiative never came to pass, so the idea was shelved at the time. Facing a new threat to their fishery, they’ve revisited the idea.

A seine doesn’t capture fish the same way a traditional set gillnet does. Gabriel explained that the diamond shaped mesh of the gillnet is designed so that salmon can swim through it, but then become stuck at the gills.

The seine, he said, is different because the fish never stop swimming. The seine is like a fence that loops around an area of water and then pulls in the fish. Gabriel said when pulling in the net, too, it feels markedly different because the fish aren’t caught until they run out of water.

Because the fish aren’t caught at the gills and are extracted from the water unharmed and still alive, the thinking is that any fish can be safely released while retaining target sockeye.

“That was the premise,” he said. “Can we catch sockeye and release kings alive?”

Gabriel said they’ve accomplished just that, safely releasing around a dozen king salmon, only one of which was a large king. Each was unharmed and swam away.

“We checked that box.”

All of this effort to protect king salmon comes as the east side setnet fishery has faced significant restrictions in recent years to protect the species. King salmon are not the target species of the ESSN, but some kings can be caught and killed in setnets when the commercial fishery is operating.

Escalating restrictions culminated in a complete season closure announced months before their scheduled start in 2023. This year, the fishery is again entirely closed, but some openings have been allowed with dipnets. Harvest reports from the State Department of Fish and Game show that few sockeye have been harvested using the method.

The Kenai River’s late-run king salmon were named a stock of management concern in October, and according to the new stock of concern action plan approved by the State Board of Fisheries in March, the ESSN won’t be allowed to fish in earnest until 14,250 large kings are expected in the Kenai River’s late run.

Per fish counts from the department, only 3,700 large kings have been counted by sonar as of Tuesday.

“They’re not close,” Gabriel said.

Coming up with a way to fish without killing kings has been a regular topic of conversation amongst commercial fishers in recent years. Several options have been proposed, from modified gear to “surgical setnetting.”

Gabriel said he likes the seines as the right potential path forward for his fishery because its possible to release every fish “alive, healthy and in excellent condition.”

“You can literally release every king.”

Alongside determining whether or not the seines can safely release king salmon, the other big question, Gabriel said, is whether the gear type is economically viable. That is, can enough sockeye be caught to make it worth the time, effort and money for people to fish with the seines. Gabriel says they think they’ve accomplished that too, at least on the beaches they’ve tested.

It’s not possible to directly correlate the sockeye harvest this summer with the seine against the harvest that might’ve been seen if the ESSN were wholly operating, Gabriel said. There are fewer people fishing, over different amounts of time, more directly impacted by tides. But he said he likes what he’s seeing.

“We’re doing fairly well.”

On Tuesday afternoon, the group had only just seen their first large king salmon caught in the seine, after having operated since late May. Gabriel said the release was “excellent.” They quickly identified the fish, rolled it free of the net and watched it take off “like no problem at all.”

The seines are able, he said, to operate without any impact to the kings while still providing enough opportunity to “pay the bills.”

Fishing with the seine net is still highly experimental, Gabriel said. The seine gear is compatible with existing infrastructure used by setnetters, like the pulleys that drag the nets out into Cook Inlet. But the seines are also different from more familiar setnets, and Gabriel said they’ve had to be light on their feet to modify the net during the season as they learned how it interacted with Cook Inlet tides. The net that was being used this week isn’t the same one they started with.

So far, the nets have been tested on a fish site owned by Travis and Amber Every down Kalifornsky Beach Road as well as on a fish site out in Salamatof. The two beaches required different approaches — Salamatof is shallower than Kalifornsky, and the nets go out farther.

“Each beach is probably gonna have little challenges.”

Another hurdle to overcome, Gabriel said, is finding a way to offer similar opportunity to people with sites that fish farther from shore — “this is sort of beach-oriented.” The purpose of this summer’s fishing is to collect information to bring to the commissioner and the Board of Fish in search of a way forward.

Sarah Frostad-Hudkins and Jason Hudkins own the site on Salamatof Beach where the nets were also tested. Frostad-Hudkins said they were immediately supportive of the Gabriels’ ideas for finding a way to harvest sockeye while supporting king returns.

They said they were encouraged, “cautiously optimistic” about the results they were seeing. Frostad-Hudkins said she’s been impressed by the number of sockeye that were harvested and the successful live releases of other fish.

Hudkins agreed with that sentiment.

“There’s definitely something here,” Hudkins said. “Low impact, clean fishery. When you can literally target the species — 100% effectively — that you’re trying to target and release everything else alive right at the water’s edge? Absolutely.”

Frostad-Hudkins said she can trace her family’s history commercial fishing on the east side of Cook Inlet back a full century, 100 years this summer. In 1924, her grandfather was fishing with fish traps — those aren’t legal anymore. The fishery evolved to setnetting. Now it might be time to evolve again.

“Evolve or die,” she said.

If the beach seines are implemented in the future, Gabriel said he envisions a setup that was managed according to tides. Fishing a few hours before high tide, through the flood and then through the first few hours as the tide recedes makes for a targeted six-to-eight hour opening as opposed to a default 12-hour opening where a large part of the day may be at low tides when there isn’t enough water to fish the seines.

The seines can be operated with a small crew, perhaps as few as five people, Gabriel said.

On Tuesday, there were far more working the site. There were two large rigs that pulled the net in and out of the water, smaller vehicles that moved in with large crates to collect the salmon, and several others on foot who moved in as the net emerged from the inlet to pick out non-target species and harvest the sockeye.

The net was put out for roughly 10-minute periods repeatedly while fishing that afternoon, and each time it was pulled back in it brought a couple dozen salmon with it, often accompanied by a few flounders.

Frostad-Hudkins said that the seines, in her time observing the tests, have appeared safer, with reliance on machinery and less impact from the weather. She said she could see the seines refocusing the ESSN around its family-business roots.

“Getting back to being families and harvesting salmon,” she said. “Being together and working together.”

The fish caught are coming in alive and in better condition than those caught with a setnet, Gabriel said. There’s little scale loss, and they’re put onto ice within minutes of being brought in by the net. The result is a higher quality product that might be marketable as such. If the seines can’t catch as much fish as a set gillnet, perhaps they can still sell those fish for a higher price.

The beach seine test is being run using a special permit from the Department of Fish and Game. To recoup costs, the fishers can sell the sockeye harvested on days when the ESSN is open to dipnet fishing. They’re also allowed to fish outside those days but must release everything they catch.

That was the case when they tested in Salamatof, releasing countless sockeye salmon — without killing one.

“We haven’t had any dead loss,” Gabriel said. “It killed some of us to watch 100 sockeye salmon swimming away.”

Once all the data is in, Gabriel said, conversations can be had with Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang and others about how the seines work and what the path forward is. The Board of Fish meets on three-year cycles, and Upper Cook Inlet was heard earlier this year, so matters concerning the ESSN aren’t scheduled for deliberation until 2027.

A request can be made to hear the issue out of cycle, which would need to be submitted by the end of August.

Vincent-Lang has been supportive and encouraging, Gabriel said, but where the seines will be next year or in the next couple years, “I’m not exactly sure what that looks like.”

“We’ve got quite a few sockeye and we haven’t killed kings,” Gabriel said. “That’s pretty exciting for us. Honestly, when we started this, we didn’t know what would happen when we stuck the seine out there.”

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