NSRAA spring meeting results

Salty

2009-03-20 16:58:51

I posted this to our Chum Trollers Association members yesterday.

Fellow chum trollers,

After working for months here is what has come down. Alan Anderson of the NSRAA Board asked Linda Danner of the Chum Trollers Association to serve as his proxy since he was going to be at the SPC Board meeting in Bellingham. Linda did a great job and worked closely with yours truly to represent chum trollers at the NSRAA Board meeting. She had to leave at noon yesterday as she is flying to Hawaii today. She asked me to fill in for her. Stephen Rhoads lost his bid to be on the NSRAA Board to long time incumbent, George Eliason.

On the key allocation issue concerning the net/troll rotations in Deep Inlet the seiners had the votes and their plan of seining Sunday and Thursday for the whole season in the Deep Inlet Terminal harvest area was adopted unanimously. Under this plan the gillnetters will fish Tuesday and Wednesday and trollers and cost recovery will fish in the Terminal Harvest area on Monday, Friday, and Saturday. The majority of Deep Inlet itself will be closed as a cost recovery area until cost recovery is achieved which is scheduled to be in the middle of August.

On the issue of fishing in the cost recovery(cr) sanctuary area in Deep Inlet after cost recovery is achieved there was much debate and we could not come to an agreement with the seiners. The seiners wanted to first in the cost recovery sanctuary area after it re-opened. But, they did not want to go twice before the gillnetters. So they proposed that the area open the first Sunday after cr was completed. Then they proposed to let the chum trollers fish from the time cr was completed until the next Sunday. We jumped at that chance but upon further reflection they withdrew that offer and after much discussion they finally offered trollers one day, Saturday, for the first crack in the Deep Inlet CR area. We asked for Friday and Saturday. Eventually the NSRAA Board voted 10-5 to just allow the trollers one day, Saturday.

In essence we came out with a pretty good plan and should have the opportunity to catch a few more chums ( I estimate 10-20,000) than in the recent past everything else being equal. A lot of credit goes to Linda Danner for articulating the chum trollers perspective during the discussions. Richie Davis also worked hard and spoke up for chum trolling. But, the seiners had five voting members at the meeting, the trollers had two, and the gillnetters were not supporting anything the trollers wanted so we basically got what the seiners gave us.

On the spring Chinook fishery Richie Davis worked hard behind the scenes with the seiners and got the nets out of the Terminal Harvest Area in May, and got the line at Samsing pulled back nearly to Sandy Cove until the third week in June. That should be worth 1,000 to 2,000 more Chinook to the trollers.

Thank you for all your support.

Ocean Gold

2009-03-28 16:21:55

Erik, the line move got cancelled by fish and game, that would have been a BoF decision and not a decision made at NSRAA. so back out in the same o same o..........even though it would have been a huge help we will be back in three years begging again. Maybe the trollers need to ask to be exempt from the enhancement tax too catch up?

Carol W

2009-03-28 17:32:24

I think a couple things and the first is I guess it is time to have our rotation spot back in all these terminal harvest areas, meanin in Deep Inlet for example it would be three days of trolling to one of gillnet and all net fishing closed in our rotation. Secondly I think the troll fleet ought to have a fish in or at least go district 8 and 11 when the gillnets fish and put our poles down and get in the way of their sets. The other thing we need to think about is neither one of the net groups think we are serious about our claim to our share of the hatchery fish.

Salty

2009-03-28 20:02:34

Thanks Tom,

What can we do about Deep Inlet? Without the line change we did not gain much on the Chinook.

I agree with your thoughts. We, as chum trollers, did our best to get a little better harvest rate here at Deep Inlet. We floated allocating a certain number, more days in the Inlet, a dedicated day, etc. What we got is what the seiners decided to give us. We also built a record of requesting more opportunity that would work for us.

What the net groups are serious about is not improving troll opportunity on chums in Northern SE. On the one hand they complain about more trollers not taking advantage of the chum troll opportunity we do have and then on the other hand don't allow improvement in the opportunity that we say will improve both effort and troll chum harvest.

The hard fact is that our SE Alaska hatchery program has been highly successful in producing chum with cost benefit ratios running from 7-11 to one. The Chinook programs, which I strongly support and fish on every May and June, produce at a cost benefit ratio of about 1.5 or so to one at NSRAA. Coho are somewhere better than Chinook but nowhere near chum. For trollers to move within their allocated share we need to harvest a higher percentage of the chum. We can do it. At $.98 per lb. which SPC settled at last year it becomes a highly attractive fishery for trollers.

The problem is that they are harder to catch than coho and Chinook. The catch rates for different boats on the drag don't differ by magnitudes of 3 or 4 to one but often by 5-10 to one. Fishing chums is more like fishing tuna I hear. If your boat is too noisy, too fast, or not in electrical magnetic tune you just do not catch chums in the quantities needed to make it pay. Handling 4-5,000 pounds of troll chums and unloading every day is just a different kind of game than handling 100-200 coho a day.

But, at $.98 per lb., or even $.30-$.40 per lb. that I hear for this season, it is going to be attractive enough that guys with boats that are in tune and can handle that kind of volume are going to start entering the fishery. A couple of the best coho trollers in the fleet are already in chum patch every year now. And some guys just like the challenge of figuring it out. I know some of the relatively new guys have figured out gear and systems that have worked much better than what we thought worked pretty well 15 years ago. I am sure the fishery will evolve even more. I use different wire, different snaps, a different gear setting system, different leader, different flashers, different hooks, different voltage, and different bugs than I used 5 years ago for example.

I share this because the political dynamics are such that chum trolling can not survive as a viable alternative with only 20 - 30 guys taking it seriously. We need trollers fishing and catching chums from Cross Sound to Neets Bay both for the political dynamics and to build market recognition.

As chum trollers we really appreciate your insight and work on behalf of chum trolling Tom.