The Kenai River Sportfishing Association held an open meeting to discuss the federal ruling to allow gillnet subsistence in the Kenai and Kasilof Rivers.
Executive Director Ricky Gease said the allowance of gillnets in those rivers will significantly complicate complying with the existing conservation measures.
Gease: “For example, for Rainbow Trout and Dolly Vardens below Skilak Lake there’s no harvest of fish over 18inches so we’re not harvesting the breeding population we’re targeting harvest on the juvenile populations. For the early run King Salmon there is a slot limit now from 42 inches to 55 inches, how are you going to measure the King Salmon that’s tangled up in a Gillnet in the river and release it if you do entangle that fish.”
The proposals for the rivers came from the Ninilchik Traditional Council and the subsistence focused on sockeye salmon.
Gease said he thinks dipnetting for subsistence, which is used in a variety of places around the peninsula, is a much easier way to target sockeyes and avoid other species.
Kenai River Professional Guide Association President Steve McClure attended the meeting.
McClure: “For the public to get more involved, I think this is going to be an issue that affects all of us and I think from the business to right down to the people who enjoy fishing on the river to even the subsistence users, I think they’re going to see that the by catch rate of this will be bothersome.”
Gease said a popular forum that the public could attend is the Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board’s meeting on February 12.
