Homer advisory committee to weigh proposals pushing commercial fishing back from the Spit

Homer's Fish and Game Advisory Committee meets Tuesday, Nov. 10, to discuss three proposals that would push commercial fishing back a half mile to a mile from the Homer Spit.

Advisory committees make recommendations to the Alaska Board of Fisheries, which meets Dec. 1-4 in Seward to set Lower Cook Inlet finfish rules. The Spit proposals are among 50 for the region, and the committee has until Nov. 16 to pick someone to speak for it in Seward.

All three cite boat safety around the Spit and the Homer Small Boat Harbor:

• Proposal 25, from Joseph Brewer, would close waters within a half mile of the Spit to commercial fishing. Brewer, who has worked at a tackle shop on the Spit, says charter boats have to navigate around nets to get in and out of the harbor. "I am not against commercial fishing," he writes.

• Proposal 26, from Kenneth Bingaman, would close waters within a mile. He says nets reaching a half to three-quarters of a mile out interfere with harbor traffic and boater safety.

• Proposal 27, from Wesley Humbyrd, would move the Northshore Subdistrict line a mile off the Spit. Besides safety, he says the state has been directing the Lower Cook Inlet power purse seine fleet into a corridor used by salmon headed for Upper Cook Inlet.

Lower Cook Inlet's commercial salmon harvest this year was about 354,000 fish, nearly all sockeye, according to preliminary state figures.

The committee meets at 6 pm at the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve, with an online option. The Board of Fisheries' notice sets a Nov. 23 deadline for public comments, though the committee's agenda lists Nov. 16.