Board of Fisheries opens comment on Cook Inlet and Kodiak fishing rule proposals

The Alaska Board of Fisheries issued notice Friday that it will take up changes to Cook Inlet and Kodiak finfish rules this winter, with the first public comment deadline Nov. 23.

The notice sets out the full range of what the board may consider. For subsistence fisheries, that includes identifying or modifying customary and traditional subsistence uses, changing the amounts considered reasonably necessary for subsistence, and creating and regulating tier II fisheries, along with seasons, harvest limits, gear rules and management boundaries. The notice says any changes must uphold the subsistence priority in state law.

None of the 50 proposals in the Lower Cook Inlet book or the 25 in the Kodiak book seeks such a finding or a tier II fishery. One would set a maximum size for king salmon and halibut in Lower Cook Inlet's subsistence, sport, personal use and commercial fisheries. Kodiak Proposal 71 would cap subsistence Pacific cod longlines at 100 hooks per person and 200 per vessel, cap pots at 10 per person and 20 per vessel, and require a subsistence permit to keep cod. Upper Cook Inlet proposals are not yet posted.

The board "is not limited by the specific language or confines of the actual proposals" submitted by the public or the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the notice says, and final regulatory language may differ.

The notice calls the schedule tentative: Lower Cook Inlet finfish Dec. 1-4 at AVTEC in Seward, with comments due Nov. 23; Kodiak finfish Jan. 5-8 at the Kodiak Marketplace, due Dec. 21; and Upper Cook Inlet finfish March 4-15 at the Egan Convention Center in Anchorage, due Feb. 17.

Written comments may run 100 single-sided pages before a meeting, 10 once it opens and five once proposal deliberations start. Comments filed after deliberations begin "are likely to receive less consideration," the notice warns.

Under the board's Traditional Knowledge policy, a knowledge holder nominated by a community, tribe or qualifying organization gets 10 minutes before the board.