If an alien were to land on Earth and only read the changes in the regs., I wouldn't blame him for thinking sportfishermen and guides must be more of a problem than the commercial fishermen.......disgusting.

AKbill, Have you seen the new regs. for the Kenai? I have been gone for 2 weeks and lost track how they were going. Thanks, fp

fp, I think Bob is going to post them on his "News" page, but I'm not sure that the changes are complete yet.

I haven't been able to get a complete listing of the changes yet ... but I know that they are not all 'good' for the the sporties. The Kasilof which I fish is one example ... the river will be closed to fishing on Sundays in July next year to protect the wild chinook ... now I'm not all against this ... but what does irk me is that the river has always had very little sport pressure in July ... hardly enough to ever make much of a dent in the return ... however, the numbers seem to be down ... is it any conincidence that the vast majority of set and drift EO's for sockeye take place in the Kasilof subsection?? Those of us who have fished the river have been complaining for some time about the effect of the bycatch ... I know a B&B owner just to south of the river's mouth who watches upwards of 50 kings per set being taken in a 'sockeye' fishery ... I can't begin to tell you how many of the jacks that we catch are net-scarred! These fish need to be protected, however, in this particular case, we're looking at the wrong solution ... traps????

Bob, I'm a catch and release steelhead fisherman down here and a 23 year drift gillnetter in Cook Inlet who is trying to get out. This is probably as a friend put it like trying to catch bees with vinegar not honey, but i thought I'd reply to you. I agree with you that those openings in the Kenai/Kasilof subsections kill the kings. They run along the beach. The problem is the management and too many user groups going after the same resource. First, they took the period around the 13th away and put us in there. Normally we would fish the middle rip and only catch sockeye. Then they took the 27th away in the middle and put us in there on that day also because we caught too many silvers. The new one added this year takes a 3rd day out of the middle and puts us back in the corridor. Another day added to potentially catch kings so the Northern district setnets can get a few more reds. Besides that on non normal periods (Mondays and Fridays) when Kenai or Kasilof escapement provides they put us in there also sometimes 4 or 5 days a week. What this does is also put the Eastside setnets in the water to because they get equal time. They fish from shore to 1 and a half miles out and we fish 1 and a half to 3. 600 boats and a lot of setnets. A small percentage of kings are taken at 3 miles but i know a lot are taken in those beach sites. 50 per set may be a little high but a lot. Have you noticed the average size of the kings? Way smaller than in the 1980s. Over harvest of the big boys. In 1987 and 88 they opened the mouth of the kenai. That was a slaughter. Today 70 80 90 lbers are rare. The good old days we fished 2 days a week in the middle and plenty of fish escaped. Now the commercial nets are even more restricted to those corridors where it doesn't do anyone any good. Comm. fishing used to be my primary income, then it became a good suppliment now its pocket change. I'm getting out and moving on. It doesn't make sense to kill a resource for pocket change like down here. Another problem noone talks about are the kodiak seiners they hammer Kenai fish. Cook Inlet is a mess unless your a dipnetter whichis another story. Halibut will also start hurting if everyone keeps killing the 2-400 lbers. keep the chickens for meat. A lot of guys would jump at an offer if the state started buying permits back. Traps won't happen. Thanks and good luck up there. An avid sporty and soon to be ex gillnetter. Can you be both?

You can ... You've seen the light!!!

Just kidding ... you're right on with the overharvest ... in some areas ... the Kenai being one, but certainly not the Kasilof's second-run kings ... yet the numbers go down, and the timing of the run comes later and later every season it seems with the latter July netting and the only fish really making it through being the August returners (yes, I do know you could look at this fact and point to sport harvest in July ... but keep in mind that there are usually around than a 1/2 dozen boats on the river on any given day ... hardly enough to do a ton of damage). I also have to question of enhancing
the red return for commercial fishing purposes without regard for a wild run of chinook. The fifty per set I'm sure is high in many areas ... but these are at nets nearer the mouth ... but I have a hard time believing that the TOTAL Cook Inlet king catch is 10,000 fish as the commercials' numbers say.

The butt are a big concern too ... I think a lot of people that are concerned with the resource would welcome some sort of a slot limit. I would!