Cook Inlet’s east side setnet fishery won’t get to use beach seines this summer following a vote by the Alaska Board of Fisheries last weekend. The vote is a blow to some permit holders who’d hoped the gear would open new fishing opportunities this season.
In recent years, low king salmon runs have restricted fishing opportunities for more than 400 permit holders. And for the last two years, that meant no fishing season.
That’s what prompted Brian and Lisa Gabriel to try something new. Using a special permit from the state’s Department of Fish and Game commissioner, they experimented with beach seines last summer. Their goal was to figure out whether the new gear type would let them harvest sockeye salmon, while not harming king salmon.
“We did that, tested it, and we had very good results,” Brian said.
That’s Brian, who’s also mayor of Kenai and has been setnetting for decades. Of the more than 15,000 salmon the Gabriels caught with their set beach seine last summer, just 13 were king salmon. All were released alive back into Cook Inlet.
The value of disaster declarations for Upper Cook Inlet and the east side setnet fishery topped $20 million between 2018 and 2021. But Lisa says the real impact is a blow to business.
“We've been in disasters for the last six of seven years,” she said. “Number six is on the governor's desk right now … it’s one thing to say, oh, go through the motions, and you can catch a couple fish. But it's your business, also. Like, we've got a ton of stranded capital sitting up on the beach right now, including the property we operate off of.”
Fish get caught in set gillnets when their gills get caught on the mesh net squares. The net hangs like a wall in the water. Seine nets have smaller diamonds a billow with the tide, scooping them up when the net is pulled back to shore.
Gary Hollier is another long-time east side setnetter who experimented with beach seines last summer. He reported similar results to the board last week – no kings killed.
“The Department of Fish and Game and the Board of Fish has asked the setnet fleet to come up with some way to harvest sockeye and not kill kings,” he said. “Beach seining is the simplest and most cost-effective way to achieve those two goals.”
So, the Gabriels brought their results to the state Board of Fisheries, which met in Anchorage last week. It isn’t normally when board members would consider a proposal like this. The board operates on three-year cycles, and the cycle for Upper Cook Inlet was last year. But the Gabriels last fall successfully got on the agenda as an out-of-cycle request.
The Gabriels wanted the board to add beach seines to the type of fishing gear allowed under a management plan for the Kenai River’s late-run king salmon fishery that the board approved last year. Here’s Brian again.
“What that did for us is as setnetters, is it put us where we weren't allowed to fish with our set nets unless we hit a target of 14,250,” he said.
That’s an escapement of 14,250 large king salmon. State data show runs haven’t hit that target in recent seasons. Last year, the cumulative king run was just over 6,600 fish. For setnetters wanting to fish, the odds of reopening the fishery aren’t in their favor.
The board said it received about 150 public comments in support of adding beach seines to setnetters’ toolbox when king runs are low.
At the same time the board adopted its more restrictive plan for late-run Kenai River kings last year, they newly allowed setnetters to fish commercially with dipnets – like those used during the Kenai and Kasilof rivers’ popular personal use fishery.
Through the proposal submitted last weekend, the Gabriels asked for permission to use dipnets and their set beach seines.
Multiple board members, like Anchorage representative Curtis Chamberlain, said the results of the Gabriels’ experimental fishery were encouraging. Others said more data is needed before they’d vote to approve beach seines for the whole fishery.
“I firmly believe it is in the best interest of the stock and that’s who our duty is to,” Chamberlain said. “And I feel that this leads to a necessary evolution in fishing technique and responsible fisheries management for the best interest of this stock.”
But the question ultimately put before board members wasn’t the one asked by the Gabriels. Three board members advanced a significant rewrite of the proposal that would have striked setnets entirely from the list of fishing gear allowed in Cook Inlet, regardless of king runs. And it would have only allowed beach seines when king runs got above that 14,250 level.
Realizing the rewrite put all setnets at risk, the Gabriels switched quickly from lobbying for their proposal, to lobbying against it.
“At that point, we just wanted to kill it because, you know, we felt that it violated the public notice,” Brian said. “I mean, there's literally, you know, over 400, you know, east side setnet permit holders that aren't at this meeting to defend them losing their gillnets.”
Some board members said the debate over spiking setnets belonged at the next Cook Inlet meeting, in 2027. Others, like Greg Svendsen, suggested there may not be a future for setnets in the inlet.
“From my perspective, I do not want to see setnets in the inlet again," he said. "If I had my way, there’d be no setnets in the inlet, period – drifters or setnets.”
The rewritten proposal failed on a tie vote 3-3. Mike Woods, who setnets commercially, recused himself from voting. After all was said and done, setnetters walked away from last week’s meetings with no new beach seine permissions and after almost losing their principal gear type entirely.
Now, the ball is now largely in the court of Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang. He said Wednesday he’s cautiously optimistic about the results of the Gabriels’ experiment, but he agrees more data is needed.
“I think they demonstrated this gear has the potential of selectively harvesting sockeye salmon with low impact to Chinook salmon,” he said. “But I think before we get to a point where we're going to just legalize that fishery across the broad geography, the east side setnet the fishery, we need to do a little bit more work.”
Vincent-Lang says his next steps include figuring out how to best issue more special permits to help fill in data gaps – the biggest one being how representative the Gabriels’ data is of other fishery sites. And as he brainstorms what the next round of special permits could look like, he says he’ll work with the state law department to do so in a way that doesn’t go against the board’s intent.
For their part, Brian and Lisa Gabriel say they’re up to the challenge of collecting more data.
“This board has told us that they want more data, so we're going to make sure that data is there and it's complete,” Lisa said.
But, they’re concerned about some of the board’s rhetoric regarding setnets.
“Just to be told that we are put on notice for our next meeting, that they are basically going after our gill nets, that's a – I think that's pretty interesting, bold strategy,” Lisa said.
Looking farther ahead, Vincent-Lang says he shares some board members’ concerns about the long-term future of set gillnets in Cook Inlet.
“When you have a gear type that's non-discriminatory, that isn't selected to a certain species, you end up with concerns,” he said. “So right now, the board made that decision. We're abiding by that decision, and the board can make another decision in two years from now.”
All versions of the beach seine proposal, the Gabriels’ final report and recordings of the board’s meetings can be accessed on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website.
