Chum Trollers Association News

Discussion area for political and legal issues affecting Alaskan salmon fisheries.
Salty
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Salty »

Grabber,
The way I read the plan you don't need to re-open it to accomplish what you are suggesting. We will need BOF action to put trollers into Distict 11, the seiners havn't fished in District 11 in so many years I am not sure it is even possible to open 11 or 15 without BOF action.
The most important reason back in 76 and 77 for some of us organizing the associations was so Alaska fishermen, instead of corporations, would control ocean ranching technology. I think we have succeeded tremendously in that respect. To me the thought of taking any of the PNP's in SE out of the allocation formula, after SE fishermen and the State and Federal Government have invested millions in them over the years, flies in the face of all we have done working together to control and share the benefits of ocean ranching technology.
While I can support some of the specific ideas you post, grabber, the idea of pulling DiPac or other PNP's out of SE enhanced salmon value sharing is a non-starter for both practical and philosophical reasons. I went to almost every BOF meeting in the 70's and 80's dealing with SE issues. I was an officer of the Sitka Fish & Game Advisory Committee for most of those years. I am sure I have attended more NSRAA meetings than any other non-board or staff member. So I understand, as few do, the cost of gear groups warring with each other.
As many of you also know I have become familiar with and use my excel programs to analyze how we are doing in terms of sharing. I understand, as few do, what the numerical ramifications of taking DiPac out of the SE sharing formula will do. We are sharing e-mails and checking our numbers internally within the chum trollers association as I write this. The preliminary analysis is that it would benefit gillnetters at expense to trollers. Have the gillnetters asked Chip, or asked the RPT to ask Chip, what the model says would be the result? Seems like a reasonable question and then you would have an objective answer. While we are at it why don't we ask what it would take to bring the trollers up to 29.5%, the mid-point of our allocation, in Northern SE, starting in 2010 without putting the seiners out of their allocation?
But, that does not mean there can't be common ground found on re-imbursing DiPac and other PNP's for the 3% value their fishery produces. Along with that should be some oversight that they do their share to contribute to equitable sharing among the gear groups. For example: the commercial harvest of DiPac salmon last year was estimated to be worth $7,628,536. 3% of that amount would be $228,000.00. While I don't understand all the internal workings of why NSRAA stopped supporting DiPac projects I am open to considering supporting re-investing in DiPac so long as we could see a plan by DiPac to improve trollers harvest share of their salmon which was 0.8% in 2009.

One of the things I learned facilitating group process over the years is that in the search for common ground you often have to abandon some ideas that just don't fly with other participants. But then other things seem to take root. At first it often seems that there is an extreme scarcity of common ground. But, usually, if people of good will hang in there and work with each other long enough an increasing amount of common ground emerges. For example: I am sure almost everyone on this site really loves the thrill of the big set, seeing the jumpers heading in, the challenge of filling the boat without sinking it, the satisfaction of working it out so we all get our shot. I can remember days at Long Island when I could see gillnetters hauling nets full of chums at one end of the Island while I was loading the lines at the other end. And the seiners were filling em up at Silver Pt. It did not happen by accident.

Of course all the above, unless otherwise noted, are my personal perspectives.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Carol W »

Grabber I typed up quite a reply to your posts unfortunately I somehow lost the post so I will try to recapture my thoughts.

First off if there was something I would change is adding another 5 year rolling average yet keeping the time for action to start on the 3rd five year rolling average keeping any actions small and somewhat conservative. And making any major production shifts to be on the last 5 year rolling average. The thought process behind the 3 five year rolling averages were that; we didn't want knee jerk reactions, new production takes time to get online (so lengthening out to 10 years would be to long and further excrabate the imbalances), that there are other influences that are outside of the scope of what hatcheries control ( market conditions, wild stock run strengths, weather conditions effecting whether coho are close to coast in July, etc) and sometimes time corrects the problem. I have often wondered if maybe one of the Ideas we should have captured more is for each ehancement entity be required to look at their own production and see if they are meeting their obligations in 1st the release of fish and secondly how their returns are matching up.

As a member of the troll fleet and the longest serving member on the SSRAA board of directors I have often realized that the chances of the troll fleet actually meeting its percentages doesn't mean that the plan is broken. The hatcheries are very important to the economic viability of the troll fleet whether we are catching our percentage or not and in my mind the value of the percentages that are listed for the troll fleet are a guarentee as to production aimed at the troll fleet, and not nessasarily a guarantee as to harvest. On the face of it one may draw the conclusion that either the plan is broken or the troll percentages are to high and need to be lowered, however this is far from the trueth, here is an example and maybe if you stop and think about this example Grabber you may understand why the troll fleet has been so patient. The chinook program is designed with the troll fleet in mind and is doing the job chinook releases were designed to do and that is mitigate the loss of chinook due to the treaty. Currently there are 400 plus trollers who fish in the May and June however the majority of chinook are harvested in the net fleets fishing in the THA's, on the face of it the chinook program hurts the troll fleet in the allocation percentages. However from the troller perspective that fishes in May and June this is a very valuable fishery to their bottom line. We as a fleet don't ask that the net harvest of these chinook be curtailed because they harvest more than the troll fleet we support the program because we are able to work at a time that if the hatcheries didn't produce chinook. So from my perspective yes I would like trollers to increase their percentage of value it is not the only measure of success of the enhanced fish allocation plan. The coho program is another example we as a fleet do harvest the lion share of these fish and the enhanced coho help keep our fishery very much alive. But it is almost impossible to release enough coho to make up for the difference in value of all the chum. Currently 90 % of all the enhanced fish released in SE AK are chum which are primarily a net fish and even though Eric and a group are quite effective at harvesting chum there is not enough room for the entire troll fleet to harvest chum to make up the difference, and further more the processors much prefer to get chum from the net fleet as they are more effective. Yet the gillnet fleet who right now is maximizing its harvest of enhanced fish are crying foul because trollers are protecting their interest and wants to change the allocation plan to further increase their harvest. I am not naive enough to think that if the percentages were changed that the production of chinook and coho wouldn't then decrease. SSRAA has been dealing with water issues for quite sometime now and if we could just lower the troll percentage then maybe we could decrease coho production and then increase chum production. As I have said the value in these percentages to the troll fleet is it safeguards the production of fish for our fleet. There is a gillnetter on the SSRAA board who has been there almost as long as I have been there and we had a conversation a couple years ago in how ironic it is that as SSRAA has climbed out of debt and the fish we raise are contributing more and more to the fisheries there is more bickering going on than when we had less fish for the common property.

I am the guy who a long time ago put a motion on the floor to not have a slot in the rotation for trollers in the SSRAA THA's, now this is the one thing in my years as a board of director of SSRAA I wish I hadn't done. Grabber you are correct in saying we are allowed to fish in Nakat 7 days of a week, however until we wrote the Neets Bay Harvest plan the troll fleet didn't have a tha that they could go into and harvest terminal fish with out competition of a net. To put it another way grabber imagine fishing Nakat with your gillnet while the seine fleet was there. As I said I have wished that I could have this motion back I did it at the time to help the net groups to maximize their value of dark chum in not having to have a slot of time where there was very little if any harvesting going on and the fish getting darker. So when you start harping about how unfair the plan is in not listing a THA for the gillnet fleet remember the trollers used to have their own slot and we as a fleet have given to the net fleet.

Last spring at the Board of Fish I asked members of the gillnet fleet if they would support allowing the trollers to have our openings on Stikine chinook to not coincide with their openings, to simply allow us some unfeathered access to these fish. I actually had an agreement with a couple Wrangell gillnets and yet some very prominant spokesmen from the gillnet group testified in committee against this move and killed the idea. Yes I know they aren't enhanced fish but what I am trying to illustrate is that the gillnet fleet is so paranoid that somebody outside of their group may harvest a fish they can't bend at all. So parden me if I am suspect of the gillnet community's desire to change the plan. Maybe the gillnetters should just shut up and Fish and stop calling trollers name like "make a wish group" or saying we are talking out of "both sides of our mouth" we have been patient in looking at enhanced fish and will continue to be and it is not the troll fleets perspective that we should take fish out of the gillnet hold but rather we are looking to increase our share and to protect our share.

I am sorry if I have offended anyone in the gillnet community I am just pointing out my perspective and history in this issue.

Keep your hand on it
Tom
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Salty »

Great post Tom,
Thank you so much for your perspective. Every time I listen to you my perspective broadens a bit.

But, the reason for this post is to apologize to all who have been following it. I finally got around to actually running the numbers from the gillnet plan as I understand it for what the result in 2009 would have been. Previous to this I had been running numbers on what trollers share would have been without Neets Bay etc. I had looked briefly at the ramifications of the gillnet plan and understood it would benefit them but I hadn't realized it would also benefit trollers.

Here is what the numbers would have looked like in 2009 if the gillnet proposal to remove DiPac from the allocation formula, separate NSRAA from SSRAA, and put the groups into their allocated range at NSRAA. I don't have the harvest values for Kake, SJ, and Port Armstrong, but I don't think they change things much.


Assuming DiPac harvest ratios stayed the same and NSRAA was managed to the allocation formula and the trollers caught 29%, seiners 44%,and gillnetters 27% of the value of NSRAA Common Property harvest then this would be the result. Gillnetters would improve their situation by $1,943,996.51 to 54.8% of the value of Northern SE enhanced salmon, seiners would lose $3,682,480.43 and harvest 28.5% of Northern SE enhanced salmon value, trollers would gain $1,738,484.40 and improve to 16.7% of the value of Northern SE enhanced salmon. Please check my figures because I am not a mathematician or biometrician. This is my understanding of how the gillnet plan presented by Cheyne Blough at the December 9 & 10 meeting would have worked in 2009.

I have not figured out how this would work out then for the whole region but I am confident it would put the seiners well below their allocation, leave the trollers still way out, and further move the gillnetters out of their range.

Am I close?
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Salty »

Here is a chart of the figures I used for the last post.

NSRAA and Dipac Figures 2009
Gillnet Seine Troll Total
NSRAA $724,844.00 $8,031,701.97 $1,128,048.28 $9,884,594.47
DiPac $6,923,073.00 $642,852.00 $62,611.00 $7,628,536.00
Total $7,647,917.00 $8,674,553.97 $1,190,659.28 $17,513,130.47


NSRAA and existing DiPac
Gillnet @ 27% of NSRAA Seine @44% Troll @29% Total
NSRAA Managed to allocation $2,668,840.51 $4,349,221.57 $2,866,532.40 $9,884,594.47
DiPac harvest constant $6,923,073.00 $642,852.00 $62,611.00 $7,628,536.00
Total DiPac and NSRAA $9,591,913.51 $4,992,073.57 $2,929,143.40 $17,513,130.47
Harvest % of DiPac & NSRAA 54.80% 28.50% 16.70% 100.00%

Difference in 2009 $1,943,996.51 Neg $3,682,480.43 $1,738,484.40

Hope this post is understandable
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Salty »

Gillnet plan analysis with difference.xls
(13.5 KiB) Downloaded 650 times
Well,
It doesn't look like it did in excel, I will try an attachment.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by grabber »

Tom,
Your kinda thin skinned, ain't ya? Saying trollers are talking out of both sides of their mouths is just another way of saying you belong to a very diverse group. I didn't call your gear group the "make a wish kids" as an insult either, it was i guess a feeble attempt at humor. Sorry if i hurt your feelings. The last thing want to do is start pointing fingers and name calling.
As for the troller not having a tha, we all know that they just don't work for trollers, at least for kings and cohos. Another mistake you have made is stating the processors would rather have chums from the net fleet, as they are more efficient. The only people i have heard bitch are the tenders because of the configuration of most troller makes it slow to unload. Processor could care less who catches. They just want them.
Am I harping? If so I am sorry. I thought we were having a discussion concerning allocation. If my ideas and perspectives are viewed as inflammatory, I guess I chose the wrong venue.
Gillnetters are not calling foul. What I am saying, and I am just one gillnetter, is that I think the allocation plan as written, and given the tools of the rpt and states unstated agenda of no new production, is punitive. We have become victims of DIPAC's success. the more successful Dipac is, the more fish get moved out of other areas, concentrating the fleet. As our fleet concentrates in 11 and 15, our time will diminish, as these fisheries are wild stock managed. There could be lots of chums, but our effectiveness could be resticted. Then, of course if there is a chum failure, and there will be down the road at some point, we will be left pretty much high and dry. I am merely concerned with the long term viability of my fishery, and I'm not going to step aside and allow the rpt to marginalize or put it at risk. Shoot me.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by grabber »

Your turn salty-

I'm sure the numbers you have there are correct, but it is just a scenerio. since we are talking fantasy fish, you need to include Gunnak Creek at some percentage of production, as well as port armstrong. If gunnak creek can keep getting some eggs the next few years, there is a very real possibility that in five or six years we could be having this same conversation wearing different shoes.
Aonther thing I has always raised questions in my little one way mind is accounting. Gillnet fisheries is very easy to account for. We, for the most part, fish in one district for an entire period. Tenders make the rounds and deliver fish to the plant. Outside of some back and forth between 6 and 8 and a little between 11 and 15, there are very few mixed bags of fish. Very little sampleing needs to be done in 11 and 15 on chums, as they are either native or dipac.
Seineing is a whole different animal, with tenders roaring around, getting fish possibly from different districts. Fish and Game, by their own admission, has not the man power to sample the percentage of the catch of seiners that they need, though they do their best. when the seine processors have their million pound openers, things get pretty hectic, a fact I can understand, but leaves me with some doubts that our fleet is getting a fair shake.
It is also a fact that troll boats that freeze their catch are not sampled at all. They are merely figured at the same percentage of enhanced fish as trip guys who are fishing the same area. With a freezer boats ability to roam, that might not be good enough. The troll biologist that told me this, said the 60 or so boats that freeze aren't a big enough of the percentage to worry about. I don't know if that is good enough either.
I am sure I will get taken to the wood shed for this, but I am willing to take a whipping in exchange for knowledge.
grabber
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Carol W »

Grabber no I am not thin skinned I have been around fishery politics all my life and I don't recognize you on here but I am sure we have bumped into each other somewhere along the road. In Sept of 08 I wound up trolling off the lighthouse at Tree Point the gillnets were working and we had a nice thing going I would drag between the guy on the beach set and the guy on the next set out, and let me say those orange balls you guys have are quite fishy, everything was going well I put 2 trips in catching a nice little jag of Nakat coho. The dept announced an extension in the area for the gillnet fleet but closed trolling on the 20th of Sept, so I was walking up the dock in Thomas Basin and 2 gillnetters were talking on the dock as I went by one of them said that the trollers shouldn't be allowed to fish Tree Point as those coho were gillnet cohos and trollers had no right to them, you can well imagine my reaction after 20 years on the SSRAA board. So last spring I was at the Board of fish and some very prominant members of the gillnet fleet were so steadfast in opposition in any changes or adjustments to the Taku and Stikine fisheries where your fleet catch almost all the chinook in these fisheries, it was disheartning. I bring this up for I beleave the gillnet fleet has a bit of a credibility problem when it comes to sharing the wealth, or to put it another way your fleet is making damn good money and when my fleet ask for a little access that we can fish without a gillnet in our face all sharing comes off the table. When gillnetting and trolling are opened at the same time in district 8 there is no way for the trollers to compete as there are so many gillnets tin the water we can't make a drag, we don't want all your Stikine or Taku chinook we would just like to have some time where we can fish with out being corked but I guess that is way to much to ask for.

Anyway I will try to be rational and address the issue at hand, years ago when I was on the RPT the issue of Freezer Boats came up and how they are adding value and how this should be addressed in looking at the total value of fish. A solution was reached and I can tell you that the Freezers value is incorperated into the final value. The dept does the most extensive job of sampling on the troll fleet, as compared to any other fleet, and the numbers the freezer fleet produces are for sure cranked into the overall numbers. As to how much of their fish is enhanced fish that is fairly easy for the dept to get fairly close to as the freezers are generally fishing in a fleet of ice boats so you simply take the percentage of enhanced fish in the ice fleet in the same area and apply it to the freezers, not an absolute number but fairly close.

As to sampling of the Seiners, SSRAA is now otilith marking a 100% of our chum and SSRAA is also sampling both the seine fleet and the tenders as well as the gillnet fleet. We have our own lab we sample both net groups as it gives us a much better handle on the run strength, composition of the run and contribution to the common property. I can't speak to NSRAA.
One of the interesting notes that came out of us sampling both net groups is the contribution of SSRAA fish was much higher than we originally thought under coded wire data.

As to my statment about processors wanting chum from the net fleet Neets Bay has been open to trolling for chum for a few years now but the processors are very reluctant to ru n tenders up there to buy chum. In 08 a friend of mine was fishing chum in Neets he had 9000 lbs on board ran them into Ketchikan one processor said he wasn't buying troll chums the other who my friend had sold a couple trips prior to this trip told him that was the last trip they were buying as the seiners and gillnetters were swamping the plant with chum. So it isn't entirely true that we can just go catch chum and have a market for them.

I noticed you didn't address the value to the troll fleet of safeguarding the production coming out of the aquaculture associations, that tells me that you know as well as I do that without a plan that has actual percentages aimed at the troll fleet that we would lower the production of chinook and coho. I have had many battles at the board table protecting this production and the seiners are included in the battles, so I don't mean to say the gillnet are the only advasary to troll production. As I have said we as a fleet may never reach our percentage as long as chum production is so high and now with the spread between chum value per pound and coho value per pound narrowing, reaching these percentages becomes even harder as the whole plan is based on value. I do think we as an industry in SE AK need to step a step back from this issue and look at where we are and where we have been right now we are catching a trememdous amount of enhanced fish and all three gear groups have benefitted from the success of the hatcheries, and trying to get somebody elses slice of pie is the least of our troubles. We have a common enemy out there who would just as soon see all commercial fishermen off the water, we also have some very serious enviromental changes going on that could very significantly effect our economic future far more than if one group or the other is getting a few more enhanced fish than they are alloted.

I will say in closing though that if all enhanced coho were released in the south end that the percentage of coho intercepted in the troll fishery would significantly rise. The other thing that really bears some exploration and is being looked at is how to increase the interception of Neets chinook in the spring troll fishery. It appears to me that we may eventually have to try another release site for these fish, as they are caught in the end of winter troll fishery off of Sitka and in the spring openings off of Biorka Island the next place we see these kings is in the terminal fishery at Neets. Yes there are things that can be done to help the troll percentages but it takes time and we all knew in the formulation of this plan that troll imbalances are the hardest to adjust. And yes we are a very diverse group and there is no silver bullet the chum trollers are important to me as a traditional troller in they add to the economic viability of the fleet, however we as a fleet need all three species that the hatcheries produce.

And yes I am open to discussing options and exploring possibilities but I draw the line firmly in the sand in any twinking of the plan that in any way changes the percentages or the manner in which they are calculated. The troll fleet very economic viability is dependant on the fish the hatcheries produce.

Keep Your Hand On It

Tom
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Salty »

Folks,
I had a comment from a troller today that Chum Trollers Association News had morphed into a three way discussion of the SE enhanced salmon allocation history and challenges on this site. An astute observation but I believe this discussion is totally relevant to the Chum Trollers priority for figuring out how to improve the troll fleets harvest % of SE enhanced salmon toward our allocation of 27-32%. Understanding the gillnet perspective which Grabber has articulated so well, the history of the allocation and a coho/Chinook troller perspective, which Tom has so eloquently explained are essential to working together.
Here is the deal Tom and Grabber, Chum Trollers believe we can move trollers within our allocated range. Here is how one of our board members articulated it: ""As a long term policy chum trollers would rather not see salmon taken from one or another gear group but rather the creation of new opportunities for the troll fleet. In the short term however every effort should be made to share existing hatchery sites (production) as equitably as possible. We must be assured of our share of the pie (on the table) while the other one is in the oven."
We believe the first priority is to examine all possibilities for improving Chinook and coho hatchery harvests by the troll fleet. We had a meeting with NSRAA this week that resulted in a couple of ideas we believe could move thousands of coho at Hidden Falls and Mist Cove from Cost Recovery to the troll fleet. But, as SE salmon fishermen, we make our living adjusting to reality every day, every trip. The reality of SE enhanced salmon programs is that chums have succeeded tremendously well and Chinook and coho, well extremely helpful to the troll fleet, as Tom has pointed out, have not and are not likely to in the foreseeable future be able to significantly improve the trollers share. The reality is that in order for the allocation plan to work and for trollers to get an equitable share of their 3% investment in SE enhanced salmon harvest values trollers need to harvest more chums. And we can do it.
We have proved that at Hidden Falls, Neets Bay, Deep Inlet, and chum trollers have had good success on Excursion Inlet Chums years ago when there were large returns there. We have learned some things along the way. Our troll fishery for chums does not work when the net fisheries or cost recovery are working in the same area at the same time. Our gear works best when there is a significant enough body of fish for the chums to "clatter up". It works better when the water is deep enough for us to get thirty or so fathoms of wire out. And our gear works best when the chums are holding or milling in an area as opposed to shooting by due to rain. Chums will bite our gear right up to the most terminal area. I am absolutely certain that we could figure out how and where to catch significant numbers of DiPac chums if DiPac, gillnetters, and Territorial Sportsman would support giving us a shot.
It is seldom that Tom is mistaken, but he is in regards to processors preferring net chums. Processors have been approaching us for several years now about chum troll production. There were at least three companies and multiple tenders in Neets Bay last year. We usually ask, and get, at least a nickel more per pound than the net fisheries. Our fish aren't net marked like gillnet fish, they are all individually bled, unlike seine fish, and most often they are brighter and a higher percentage are female than those caught in the same area by seiners or gillnetters. While Tom and Grabber are correct about some of our chum troll fleet not having as efficient unloading systems as top of the line gillnetters or the pumping system used by seiners, an ever increasing number of chum trollers have top of the line brailer bag/slush tank systems. I personally have unloaded 9,000 lbs., scrubbed down, and re-iced within 20 minutes at a tender and at Sitka Sound Seafoods.
Here is another interesting thing about our chum troll fishery. It is amazingly selective for chums. While the flasher/bug gear will catch coho, sockeye, and especially pinks, the chum schools often segregate themselves as they get close to the terminal area. Even when there are large numbers of pinks in the Eastern Channel area most of us can effectively minimize that catch by adjusting our drags, depth, and terminal bug. While we can use the gear to target coho by speeding up and changing the terminal bug, we can also minimize coho catch by slowing down and going to bugs coho don't like. Chinook by-catch is practically nil. Sockeyes are highly selective as to the bug they want and we can practically eliminate sockeye catch by going to bugs chums like but they don't. The other thing is that if we do catch a salmon we need to release the fact that we are going very slow and using artificial bugs on small hooks, often without barbs, means mortalities of released salmon are extremely low.
So, what we have here is a developing fishery that can effectively target our SE hatchery success story, chums. The problem is where and when. We are working on it.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by grabber »

Chum trolling will put the trollers where they are supposed to be. Of that I have no doubt. It is just a matter of more trollers incorporating it into their business plan. I don't have a problem with any of the gear groups being where they are supposed to be according to the plan. And of course, I realize that there are many factors leading to the way the numbers have worked out the last few seasons, which are, but probably not limited to: An increase in active gillnet permits pursuing enhanced chums, and everything else. Lack of time and area for seiners due to poor or later pink returns during criticle interception windows. A higher coho price (not counting last year) pulling trollers off of chums. Weaker than expected returns to Deep Inlet. Very good returns to DIPAC. And of course, there are others I am sure I am not seeing at the moment. None of these can be controlled by the rpt, the allocation plan, bof or anybody else. It is just what happens in the real world.
The bulk of the fish the gillnet fleet catches is in the common property. when we have healthy returns of sockeye to the Chilkat, Chilkoot, Taku, and Stikine, life is good. Unfortunatly, at the gillnet task force meeting in December in Kethchikan, the department painted a grim picture for management, at least in the northern end. With more and more boats, they will find themselves with the task of manageing boats. With a poor pink forecast, distrit one and six also stand to lose significant time. I don't want sympathy, I am just saying this is what we could be looking at. We are about a year from proposals, two years for the rpt to try to make a concenus. If by some miricle, all gear groups were to fall in their ranges, first next year, probably wouldn't change the proposal picture much. If it happened two years in a row, we would probably still be out with the five year rolling average and get taken to the wood shed. I said it before, and I will say it again for the last time, I promise. The plan as it is written, given the workable tools of the rpt, is punitive to whoever is out of the high end. The way I see it, the only tools the rpt has is to take time from us in tha's, or move fish to different release sites. Taking fish away puts our fleet at incredible risk for a complete bof cycle. I believe when the seiners were out, more oppourtunities and I believe more more fish(I could be wrong here i don't know that for a fact) were made availible for gillnetters. I just want the same treatment. Maybe instead of fighting over existing fish, we should all be banging on the governors door to produce something for us to catch.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Salty »

There is a huge hatchery site at Warm Springs Bay that NSRAA could develop. A local landowner there is applying for it now, but NSRAA has basically first right of refusal.

One of the problems we have with future production is the lack of suitable sites. Then we have the problem of salmon fishermen from Bethel to the Yukon worried that more SE chum production will hurt their markets.

But, I think there is enough common ground between the gear groups in SE that we should be aggressively pursuing new production somewhere on the north end for the species that works, chums.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by grabber »

finally, something we can all agree on.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by carojae »

Pardon me for a minute.

Too bad NSRAA couldn't put a little more "N" (for North) in terminal projects.

Sitka, not to mention Warm Springs bay or Hidden Falls, are not exactly in the neighborhood for a lot of northern fisherman. Fisherman and expecially the local cold storages and cannery's are having a hell of a time trying to keep above water in a sea of rough financial times. While the city of Sitka and it's fisherman enjoy the wind fall of having NSRAA operating in their back yard, other areas are hurting big time.

There should be more focus for all parties who contribute to NSRAA and SSRAA. If this is to be a enhancement program, then somebody needs to realize that your northern brethren are hurting i.e. Pelican Cold Storage folds and soon others will fall, (yes thanks in part to IFQ's).

I suppose Excursion Inlet is out of reach for a hatchery / terminal fishery ( :arrow: NPS)? How many places are available (or could be) for a hatchery/terminal fishery up here in the Northern Chatham, Icy Straits, Lynn Canal or Lisianski etc areas? I thought since the conversation waivered to allocation and fairness that this would be a good time to inject these thoughts. I realize that this is the Chum Trollers Association thread, but I just had to I bring this up because I see some very knowledable people in this thread right now. You know, Dipac is pretty good at keeping a couple (2?) of boats happy in a terminal fishery (for cost recovery) but is a joke in comparison to Sitka's Deep inlet and eastern channel et al.

Nobody can agrue about the success of Coho hatchery fish and what it does for us all as fisherman, but the Chum program is a whole differnet ball game and not quite fair for all parties interested.

Anyway, back to the program already in progress. lol.

JMHO

ps I only know the Northern area and its situation and know little about Southern Southeast. Just so you know.

Jim
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Salty »

Jim,
One of my personal top priorities for the long term is to try and figure out how we get some kind of hatchery production in the Cross Sound, Icy Straits area. Paul Johnson, who has been on the NSRAA Board for a while now, and I have talked about getting something going in that area. The biggest problem is siting to meet the criteria to protect wild salmon, which Senator Dick Eliason got protected in legislation, resulting in the top Wild Salmon policy protection of any state. I support that policy and nominated Senator Eliason to the Wild Salmon Hall of Fame in part for that work. There are a lot of good reasons for these precautions, look at the situation with salmon farms becoming vectors for salmon lice in BC for example. Nevertheless it means we have to have siting which minimizes impacts on Wild Salmon in Hatchery Harvests, competition, and disease possibilities.
Thus it makes it challenging trying to find good water sources for a Hatchery without wild salmon impacts. I have always thought Excursion Inlet, with its infrastructure, relative isolation, and two streams right there at the cannery site might hold some potential. But working around the existing sockeye, chums, coho, and pinks in the inlet might be too challenging. Likewise for Port Frederick, Idaho Inlet, and Lisianski Inlet. I thought there might be some possibility in Port Althorp but don't know the water supply and existing runs that well. Do you have any site suggestions Jim? Of course, as you mentioned, the Park is unavailable, and while I worked with Paul Peyton back in 77 to get language in ANILCA to allow hatchery activities in Alaska Wilderness, it will be difficult or impossible to site a major hatchery such as Hidden Falls in a Wilderness Area such as Yakobi Island or West Chichagof. I know the NSRAA staff would love to have a site to try and get something going.
In the meantime those DiPac chums are in large part migrating through the passes and Icy Strait the end of June and first part of July. I know when I used to fish pinks there in the early 90's I often had days of 200 or more chums. I remember one day of nearly 600 in by Mud Bay. I know the guys there would be on them if they were available. What has changed?
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by yak2you2 »

How about a hatchery, chum or otherwise, somewhere north of Icy cape? Trollers can go there, but the gillnet fleet can't, there is no seining, and very little sport fish effort. To me the isolation and exculsiveness is what makes it all the better, but I don't know anything about hatcheries. Comes down to whether a little longer run is worth having the fish all to yourself. There's a whole other "northern end" out there available to trollers that is vastly under-utilized. Believe it or not, there's quiet bays, running water, groceries and fuel, modern fish plants, and daily jet service. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Salty »

Yak,
Do you have any sites in mind? A lot of that land is Park land.

Eric
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by yak2you2 »

I don't know how much of a buffer zone away from existing salmon streams you'd have to have, as I said I don't know much about hatcheries. It's park land all along through La Palma, Lituya, around Cape Fairweather, and up to Dry bay. Unless I've missed my guess, their not going to be receptive what so ever, not to mention the remoteness. From the other side of Dry bay it's about 50 miles to Ocean cape and the mouth of Yakutat bay, still very remote, and laced with active salmon streams. The obvious place to me is right inside the eastern side of Yakutat bay somewhere. Again, it's hard to say without knowing what kind of a buffer zone away from salmon streams your talking about, and what exactly classifies a stream a salmon spawning stream? how big of a run does it take to classify it as a run? What I mean is, the entire Yakutat Forelands has a crick about every 400-500 yards that you could probably find a dozen coho in. Most of them don't even have names or show up on any charts. I can't imagine that it's any different in S.E. If these weren't a problem for the powers that be, I'd stick a hatchery somewhere right inside Monti bay, right in the city limits of Yakutat it's self. You've got a miniscule run of cohos that spawn in the afore mentioned little creeks, but it's 15-20 miles to the nearest major spawning river. You'd have road access, power, water, protected bay to work out of, and be within a mile of the fish plants.
There would be some who would be opposed to it, but the vast majority of the locals would see it as a boon. There is a tiny local gillnet fishery that would benifit from it, but it's small setnet permits operated out of skiffs, with a low impact by S.E. standards. We've talked about doing it for years as a community, but never seem to have the wear-with-all to pull it off as a tiny community. Like I said, if we as an industry (trollers), combined with the community managed to make it happen, it could be a windfall for all. Imagine having a giant place where you could go and make a lot of salmon, and fish for them without having to argue with all the other heavy weight user groups.
There would be some at the start who would weeze about it, but the depleted local runs, and over all poor economic state of the community is such that I don't think you'd find any real opposition to a well thought out plan.
The fleet would have to get used to a 1 or 2 day trip up here, big deal. Once your here, whatever fish there were, wouldn't have to be fought over. The plants are already built and quite capable, so moving the fish wouldn't be a problem. You've got a good anchorage, ammenities, and, room to spread out on some new drags for once. I should add that if you've never been here, it also happens to be a beautiful place.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by Salty »

Yak,
Tell me more about the specific site, the water supply.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by yak2you2 »

Depends on what the needs are and or exactly where it went in at. Meaning, do you have to have a natural little stream? I can think of a few in the area that would be in reach of local electricty. I don't know how big they'd have to be.Then there's the whole Ankau inlet, which is a tidal lagoon that has many little creeks feeding into it.
If you don't have to have a natural creek, you could always pump it out of the ground and make your own creek, or have all the water you wanted for whatever else.If you could do that, you could build the thing anywhere you wanted. There's some nice little bays and coves back inside that still have road access, could be powerd easily, could hold a lot of rearing pens.
The local processor boss is way into marketing chums and their eggs too, seems to easy to me. I don't know how long it would take to get it up and running, or how long until you started seeing returns, but it would sure be a big boost for the fleet and the town. I'm sure a lot of boats would migrate up this way for a fishery. I know of a couple that have migrated from here down to hit the Neets bay fishery, so traveling for chums is not something that guys won't do.
One thing that we looked at doing in the interim of building a facilty was just to have an existing hatchery knock us out a couple of boat loads of fry, and just build some pens to rear them in, so the clock could start ticking. Check it out at googleearth.com, you know what your looking for better than I do. If you do, check out the sawmill cove area, seems perfect to me.
Small handtrollers like myself would be better off by having an actual town to go home to at the end of the day, rather than have to sleep on their little boats in a more remote spot somewhere else. Probably cost a guy 1000 bucks to throw a boat on the ferry, heck i'd burn more than that in fuel to get to Hoonah.
Once a hatchery was in place, it would be neat to try out other species to see how they'd do here. I was talking to a guy who seines in Prince William sound the other day. He told me they catch more hatchery sockeyes up there now than they do wild Copper river fish. Every year they get about a billion hatchery pinks out that place seems like. I know hatcheries have their troubles, but when you don't have anything left to loose, the odds look pretty good.
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Re: Chum Trollers Association News

Post by yak2you2 »

One question Eric, I don't know anything about chum trolling either, in the summer months we get a lot of glacier silt in the water up here, and it tends to make things pretty cloudy. Can you still get chums to bite in milky water? Every year I seem to catch a handful of incidentals while I'm coho fishing so I would assume so, but all the pictures I've seen any of you post have a lot clearer water in the background than we have.
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