Fish board agrees to reconsider Area M salmon limits the state voided in May

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the description of the June fishing schedule the board will reconsider and to add board member Curt Chamberlain’s votes.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries agreed Thursday to reconsider four of the five Area M salmon fishing rules the state threw out in May.

The rules were meant to let more chum and king salmon reach Western Alaska rivers, where low returns have closed or limited subsistence fishing in recent years. The acting attorney general voided them after finding that a board member "failed to provide a complete disclosure" before the February meeting.

That member, Curt Chamberlain, voted with the majority Thursday as the board accepted five requests to reconsider the rules, each on a 4-3 vote. A day earlier, he made the order public and said he stands by his disclosures.

Area M's June fishery, off the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, targets sockeye but also catches chum and kings bound for the Yukon, Kuskokwim and other Western Alaska rivers.

The rules would put that fishery on a fixed schedule, cutting fishing time about 39% for drift gillnetters and 30% for seiners. They would also add king salmon catch limits after June and shrink the nets both fleets use.

Area M fishermen and the Aleutians East Borough have argued the rules would hurt their communities and undercut the fleet's voluntary closures.

Accepting the requests doesn't restore the rules. The board will debate and vote on them again at a special meeting, tentatively Dec. 13-16 or sometime in February.

The Orutsararmiut Native Council, Bethel's tribal government, and the Fairbanks Fish and Game Advisory Committee asked for the new votes.

The board normally takes up Area M rules once every three years. To act sooner, it must find a conservation need, an error in regulation or an effect no one foresaw when a rule was adopted. State fisheries staff said the requests met none of those.

Chair Märit Carlson-Van Dort disagreed. The February rule "was voided by a legally questionable and unprecedented action by the Department of Law," she said. "And I think that definitely falls squarely into the unforeseen category."

She also noted that two of the voided rules had passed by wider margins in February, 5-2 and 6-1.

Vice Chair Tom Carpenter said the requests were mainly about dividing fish among user groups, which board policy leaves to regular meetings unless there's compelling new information. "To me, new information is not something that was thrown out by somebody at the Department of Law," he said.

Chamberlain said subsistence fishing has been closed for long stretches on the Yukon and limited on the Kuskokwim. "To who are we allocating? And I say to the spawning beds," he said.

Member Olivia Irwin said the fishery caught 320,000 Western Alaska chum from 2022 to 2025, and that Yukon chum passage at the Canadian border, a treaty obligation, still fell short this year.

Staff said the fleet has cut back its chum catch with voluntary closures since 2023. About 1.1 million Yukon summer chum passed the Pilot Station sonar this year, well within the river's goal, staff said.

Carlson-Van Dort, Chamberlain, Irwin and Blair Hickson voted yes each time. Carpenter, Mike Wood and Paul Cyr voted no.

Eddie Lee, the board's Department of Law attorney, said Wednesday that members may vote on these requests even if they'd have a conflict on the underlying rules. Wood said that question remains open. "I don't feel like law has resolved the issue that's before us," he said.

The Aleutians East Borough asked that the special meeting be held in Sand Point or King Cove. Carlson-Van Dort said the board is looking at Anchorage.