newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — The king salmon run in the Yukon River may not be as bad as state fisheries biologists thought, but it still won’t likely be big enough to fill fish racks and smokehouses in many villages on the middle and upper part of the river, or meet Alaska’s international treaty obligations to Canada.

Thanks to a late spike of fish, biologists with the Department of Fish and Game upped their projection for this year’s chinook run past a sonar counter on the lower Yukon from 80,000 last week to as high as 120,000 this week, which is still short of the required 140,000 needed for adequate spawning numbers and a sufficient subsistence harvest.

“We’re doing better than we were a week ago,” said area management biologist Steve Hayes, who is monitoring the run in Emmonak at the mouth of the Yukon.

The Yukon king run is typically made up of four “pulses” of fish entering the river. Last week’s four-day spike represented the third pulse of the season, Hayes said. A fourth “bump” is expected to hit the river this weekend, he said.

As of Tuesday, the sonar count at Pilot Station, 120 miles from the mouth of the Yukon, was up to 91,500. It will be a couple more days before biologists know exactly how big the latest pulse is but they don’t expect it to be big enough to lift restrictions that have been or will be placed on subsistence fishermen in Alaska and Canada.

Fighting for fish

While many subsistence fishermen on the lower part of the river have reportedly caught or will catch enough king salmon to satisfy their needs, some fishermen farther up the river are worried that restrictions put in place to cut fishing time will leave them short of fish and they aren’t happy about it. Some are questioning the Department of Fish and Game’s management strategy by cutting subsistence fishing time.

“We have people on the lower Yukon that have 75 to 90 percent of their needs met. I don’t think it’s fair to have these fishing periods restricted or cut in half until we reach 50 percent of our needs,” said Mickey Stickman in the middle Yukon village of Nulato, where subsistence fishing time was cut in half starting Wednesday.

Pat Moore from Tanana, 250 miles upstream of Nulato, echoed Stickman’s comment Tuesday during the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association’s weekly teleconference.

“It’s not fair to be fishing on these damn reduced numbers when they’ve already got a good shot at them at the mouth,” said Moore in Tanana, where restrictions will go into effect next week. “I think we ought to be able to fish these other pulses.”

But Mike Smith, director of subsistence resource management for the Tanana Chiefs Conference in Fairbanks, which represents villages on the middle and upper Yukon, said it’s always the upriver users who suffer in times of poor chinook returns because fishermen on the lower river get to fish before the department knows whether it’s a strong or weak run.

“Those are the perils of inseason management,” Smith said. “Upriver guys pay the cost for conservation.”

No perfect solution

People along the river have been warning the department for years that its escapement goals are too low and the number of big fish are declining, said Smith, who called this year’s king run “a total disaster.” Smith’s main concern is “the biological integrity” of the Yukon king run, he said.

“It’s not just the number of fish you get to the spawning grounds,” he said. “You have to have different age classes represented. You have to have a good male to female ratio represented.”

The number of female king salmon is down this year and continued fishing will result in mostly small males, called “jacks,” getting to Canada, Smith predicted. Yet, the state continues to allow subsistence fishing and even opened a four-hour commercial period for summer chum salmon in the lower river Wednesday night, which will result in the incidental catch of some kings.

“Do we call for a disaster and shut down all fisheries in order to get fish into Canada or do we let people catch some fish for subsistence, knowing full well that will negatively effect escapement?” Smith said. “Basic math says we should not have been fishing this year. When does the biological integrity of the run come into question?”

But Hayes defended the department’s decision, saying that 80 percent of the king run should be through the lower river now and most of the kings entering the river come from lower river stocks and are not bound for Canada. In addition, incidental harvest of kings will be low and there are plenty of chums returning. The department is projecting a summer chum run of 1.4 million to 1.8 million fish, which is more than enough for subsistence and escapement.

“We still have a summer chum fishery to manage,” Hayes said. “Typically, we would have been fishing chums in the last week of June. We put three-quarters of the chums by (Pilot Station) before fishing for them. I think we’ve done the best job we can to et these kings through the lower river districts.”

Regardless of what kind of management decisions the department makes, Hayes said “it’s not going to be perfect for everybody.”

“We’re trying to make this as equitable as possible while at the same time recognizing people are still going to catch some fish,” he said.

Tough times

On the river, meanwhile, subsistence fishermen are struggling to catch what they need, with or without restrictions.

In past years, Fred Huntington in Galena has boated 30 miles downriver so he could use a drift net for kings. This year, because of the price of gas, Huntington is operating a set net site near the village with his sister, Agnes. So far, they have caught about 40 kings, most of which have been small males. Huntington, 58, said he usually puts up about 60 kings. With fishing time in their district scheduled to be cut in half starting Sunday, he isn’t sure if he will make it this year.

“We’re trying to get as many good days as we can when it’s good,” Huntington said. “We’ll just keep hacking at it, trying to get our share. If they cut us back we’ll just have to be happy we got what we got.”

Benedict Jones in Koyukuk, another longtime subsistence fishermen, said he has caught only about 10 percent of what he needs to get through the winter and he has only about a week and a half of fishing left. The quality of the kings is already beginning to deteriorate, he said.

“Fishing is real slow this year,” Jones said in the Tuesday teleconference. “We have to try all night to catch five or six fish.”