Another season of Kenai’s personal use dipnet fishery ended two weeks ago; City Manager Rick Koch said each year is improving.
Koch: “We put the no-wake zone in two years ago and for the first three or four days it was sort of nuts. People didn’t have it figured out and we had personnel out on the river to help direct and by the third or fourth day of that fishery two years ago, those people knew the drill. This year most of the folks are repeat customers, they know the drill when they show up. It’s kind of in the context of a dance, the city is one dance partner and the public is another one and we’re getting better at the dance.”
Koch said there were two very successful additions to the 2015 season.
Koch: “If you’re at the fishery one day early on, we told folks to hang on to that permits you had for that day so that when you show up at the fee shack it has a bar code on it, we run it, and everything is self-populated so that speeds things up. This year we put cameras in to be able to look at people’s license plates so that you don’t have to jump out and figure out what your license number is.”
Kenai administration is still working out the particulars of costs versus revenues from the fishery and those numbers are expected next week.
Koch said he expects the fishery to have done well this year, meaning the city’s personal use fishery fund will increase.
Anyone who obtained a 2015 dipnet permit, even if no fish were caught, must turn those permits into the Alaska Department of Fish and Game today.
