Commission votes Tuesday on letting Cook Inlet setnetters fish beach seines

The Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission will vote Tuesday, Nov. 17, on a regulation change that would add beach seine as an alternative gear type under the S04H permit, the Cook Inlet salmon set gillnet permit. State regulations define a beach seine as a floating net designed to surround fish, set from and hauled to the beach.

The commission will also vote on removing Arctic lamprey as a specific fishery resource and set 2027 fees for two other permit types, according to its tentative agenda.

The commission again proposed the change in October. At a June 4 emergency meeting, its two commissioners voted to acknowledge an emergency over beach seine use in the fishery, but the motion to adopt the emergency regulation failed on a split vote. Commissioner Rick Green, who presided, voted yes and Commissioner Tracy Welch voted no, according to the meeting minutes. In July, the state ordered Cook Inlet setnetters onto gear their permits do not allow.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries has also weighed the gear. At a May 1 board meeting on a proposal to open beach seines as an alternative to set nets pending commission action, Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said "there are other issues you may hear from CFEC and law with respect to being able to legalize this gear in time for this year's fishery."

In an April letter to legislators, commercial fisherman Russell Clark wrote that board Proposal 192 would replace more than 1,300 set nets with 35 to 50 beach seines in the new east side area. A separate proposal before the board would ban beach seines in all Cook Inlet waters, arguing the gear could raise unquantified deaths of released king salmon.

S04H holders who fished the new East Side Set Net area from 2020 through 2024 may apply for reassignment there. Applications must be received by 5 pm Dec. 31, or postmarked no later than Dec. 15.