fNp,

I believe that some of the commercial king harvest was from a king directed fishery using appropriate net mesh size (could be wrong here).
As a percentage of the total Cook Inlet sockeye harvest the king harvest is about one half of one percent. Even less as a percentage of the total harvest. Excluding the directed king fishery numbers this is about as selective as any harvest can be. Probably more kings died as a result of being released by sport anglers. What are the numbers for the Cook Inlet salt and fresh water sport catch? Is that number a multiple of the comm. harvest? Add on release fatalities of say ten percent and what do you have?
Want some advice on eye surgery?

Slug

Allow me to address each of your talking points in detail. It should help to clarify numerous misunderstandings about this fishery.

As you pointed out, some of the commercial harvest was in fact directed specifically at kings as the target species... those were the early run fish harvested out of the Northern District bound for Susitna Valley streams. Pretty interesting how a purposeful king fishery takes only 2000 kings while a so-called "incidental" king fishery harvests over 11,000 kings between the east side setnets and central drift fleet. Now which fishery looks like it's targeting kings? Wait, don't answer.

As far as gillnet selectivity goes, the only reason sockeye predominate the catch is they also predominate the overall return of salmon homing to Cook inlet in July. It has NOTHING to do with the selectivity of the net. If five million reds are returning to the Inlet and there are only 50,000 kings, then it stands to reason that a completely non-selective net would catch salmon in the same proportion (5,000,000:50,000 or about 100:1).

If you look at the daily catch data for the east side setnets alone, you will see that no matter what day they fish, the king by-catch is on the order of 700-900 fish

7-15.........444.0K reds..........931 kings
7-16.........103.6K reds..........664 kings
7-17...........74.1K reds..........767 kings
7-18...........47.5K reds..........750 kings
7-19...........30.9K reds..........881 kings

What this data shows is that even when the red catch fluctuates by a factor of ten-fold, the king catch stays about the same. Now there are three ways to interpret this data:

1) The nets became 10 times less selective for sockeye between 7-15 and 7-19.... WRONG

2) The nets became 10 times more selective for kings between 7-15 and 7-19.... WRONG

3) The reduction in sockeye catch was a reflection of fewer sockeye moving thru the fishing area. If the nets fish, they catch kings no matter what! There is no selectivity for sockeye. To believe otherwise is ignorance or denial... take your pick.

You are right about the Inlet sport troll fishery taking some multiple of the commercial catch.... it just happens to be a multiple significantly less than one! At only 2000-3000 kings per year, the sport catch is only a fraction of the average commercial take.

Finally, your assertion of the in-river C&R mortality is flat out wrong. ADFG measures the C&R mortality annually, and this accounts for no more than several hundred fish each year. This is the smallest component of the overall exploitation of the run by all user groups. The nets "incidentally" kill more kings in one day than C&R does for an entire season!

BTW, I welcome constructive advice about eye surgery from any and all sources.... other surgeons, nurses, and most importantly, patients. All can make a meaningful contribution toward a more pleasant surgical experience and excellent surgical outcomes. Any suggestions?

Seining the mouth of bear creek would solve the red problem on the kasilof.
Alot of that also had to do with poor ocean conditions that affected salmon runs all up and down the west coast and alaska. Elnino years were very hard on salmon.
Slug,
It is a known fact that the ADF&G biologists are pro commercial fishing, but they are behind the times. Commercial fisheries are on the decline and on their way to being subsidized in the cook inlet. Where as tourism keeps increasing and more and more money keeps flowing into the economy from outside, but because of the local culture doesn't realize the value of them and still hangs on to their commercial fishing roots thats where alot of the problems come from. Expect this battle to come to head as time progresses.

TRBO,
I drive by your house every morning on my way to work I am working on that subdivision just down the street throught the corner.

fNp,

I haven't had a lot of time to research this issue from the recreational side. Could you post the total sport king catch for Cook Inlet, not just the salt water catch and the estimated mortality from cnr? What I did find on the ADF&G website is that all king runs have met or exceeded the escapement goals in recent years and that 40% of the gillnet king catch consisted of kings less than 28 inches long (jacks) resulting in a total gillnet catch of mature kings of about 6600 fish. Less than one quarter of one percent of the commercial salmon harvest for the time kings are present in the harvest. I call that very selective.
What originally got me involved in this thread and still concerns me is: escapement is being met or exceeded, Bob is catching 30-40 kings per day, why do you become so emotional about the commercial bycatch of several thousand king salmon? If I had more time I would have presented more info to make my point.

outlaw,

ADF&G is mandated to manage for subsistence fisheries as the highest priority.

Bob,

oops--I used my memory. You were catching 20-30 kings per day.

Did you make those #'s up? That couldn't be farther from the truth in my expirience (set netting). Also there is no subsistance fishery on the east side of cook inlet. (atleast not where we are discussing) Com fish is still the #1 user group in cook inlet in ADF&G's mind.

How can a river "meet escapement" for kings Slug when no BEG exists?

Those 20-30 numbers dropped to 5-6 daily after two weeks of near daily openers and in-river mouth fisheries.

This at a time that is historically the highest of kings entering the river during the second-run.

Mere coincidence?

Probably not, with nearly 17,000 kings being reported harvested in the UCI fishery already and over 10,000 of those being in the Kasilof section alone!

http://csfish.adfg.state.ak.us/mariner/uci/ucicatchxarea.php

Funny how you see sporties asking for a king management plan to be put into place, but not the commercials. Why?

B ob & Outlaw,

My numbers came from the ADF&G website as did the statement that all river systems in the Cook Inlet area had met or exceeded their escapement goals for king salmon.
All areas of Alaska must legally have a subsistence fishery and that fishery must have the first and highest priority.
I would still like to know what the salt and fresh water sport catch numbers including cnr mortality are but no one seems to want to reveal them.

Slug,
thats not true because there isn't escapement goals for the 2nd run kasilof fish.

Outlaw,

I'm only quoting the ADF&G website and that is the extent of my knowledge on that subject.

Do you have the sport and subsistence catch of kings numbers???

Slug

You're getting the picture now, there are no numbers or goals. We're asking that there should be ...

Subsistence netters (Outside of 1st run personal use gill netting) are not allowed to retain kings on the Kasilof, so there is "no take".

It's all a matter of making sure that all species are watched over ... not just the sockeye run that is currently the only one that is considered this time of year.

Bob,

Those sport and subsistence catch numbers are about as elusive as WMDs.( I would add the little smiley face here if I knew how).

Slug ... Try this link and go to page 30 of the PDF file.

Basically says that the state of AK doesn't know jack about this fishery ... and that they should, but we still don't!

http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/FedAidPDFs/fmr02-01.pdf

Bob,

Thanks for the link. I see that the sport catch for 1999 , the most recent year in the report, for the Kasilof early run only was over 8 thou.
The late king run seems to have remained stable during two decades of hatchery sockeye production and harvest. The comm. fishery produces tens of millions of pounds of protein for a hungry world and lots of jobs and employment for the area. There really does not seem to be any reason to be concerned about the king runs.

Bob,

oops again-- that should have been income and employment

That early fishery brings in more money to the local economy than the com fishery does in cook inlet. As for the jobs,w/the exception of being a permit holder, they are all low wage short run jobs . + the early com opening targeting kasilof reds hammers the end of the 1st run kenai fish, which by all accounts isn't doing well. The attitude that only one or 2 species important is a real problem, like in 98 and a couple of other years (I need a refresher) when there was no king retention on the kenai or closures to king retention and the setnetters were still alowed to kill kings, while targeting reds.

Outlaw,

Right now there are both comm. and sport related jobs, the best of both worlds.
The ADF&G website states that all king runs have met or exceeded their escapement goals in recent years.

Just to set the record straight, I would like to share a few examples of exactly how "selective" the Cook Inlet sockeye gillnets can be. Consider first that nearly 22,000 kings have already been "incidentally" harvested by these "selective" nets... and that's just the ones reported. Countless others are retained for personal use or sold under the table. Then there are the "lucky" escapees that undergo varying degrees of bodily mutilation in their bold quest to make their way toward the rivers of their birth.


Let's start with a mild case of mid-body net-scarring. This is a classic injury as the area immediately fore and aft of the dorsal represents the area of maximum girth. If the fish is of sufficient size and strength, and not too badly tangled ( and that's a mighty big "if" folks), it can bust thru the mesh without much further damage.



This next guy didn't fare as well as the previous hen. His problems started just behind the pectoral fins. The net scars just got deeper as he pushed his way thru, until running into an impasse at the dorsal fin. At that point the fish thrashed violently, shredding the flesh on the dorsal fin right down to the bone and severely entangling everything aft of the dorsal in the net as well. Through shear determination (and thankfully dumb ignorance of the outright mutilation being inflicted by its attempts to escape) this powerful fish was able to bust its way through the "selective" mesh to cheat death for the moment. To me it looks like the fish was dipped tail first into a king-sized garbage disposal. Reminds me of a recent Mel Gibson movie I saw this spring. This salmon's body may as well have been filleted wide open to allow maximal penetration of the river's ever-flowing bacterial, fungal, and viral load. In other words, this fish is dead of overwhelming infection long before it is ripe enough to spawn.



Finally, I want to show another common injury whereby the fish gets "flossed" by a gillnet. The fish keeps pushing forward until the mesh lodges in the corner of the jaw, thereby snaring the fish across the eyes and over the top of the head simultaneously. Not pretty. Without the protection afforded by fish scales, the mesh lacerates through the naked skin surface, gouging out the periocular tissues as well as creating deep fungating ulcers on top of the head. Such injuries dramatically increase the fish's risks of acute orbital cellulitis, infectious encephalitis and ultimately neurologic damage that impairs its muscle function and swimming ability. Simply said.... it's dead... and long before it ever sets fin on a spawning bed.



Comments, anyone?