2025 Statewide Shellfish, Prince William Sound Shrimp, and Supplemental Issues (3/13/25)

Hey folks, I just wanted to let you know that we're going to come on the record at 9. We're waiting on a little bit of language. It's still being drafted prior to committee, so sit tight. Thank you for your your patience, and we're going to shoot for a 9 AM committee start.

Good morning everyone. The time is 9:08. We are back on the record. The day is Thursday, March 13th, and, um, we're going to go ahead, begin today with Committee of the whole group one. Give me a little second to give you a little information about committee process.

So for committees, we use parliamentary procedures that follow the New England town meeting style. Committees are intended to provide opportunities for additional information, information gathering, and at times, hopefully, dispute resolution. Committees are not a forum for debate nor a platform for repeating information that's already been received through public testimony, and that's oral and written public testimony. During board committee meetings, advisory committee representatives may express both the official positions of their committee as well as their personal views. However, they must identify which of the two positions they're stating.

The board recognizes the AC representatives as knowledgeable fisheries leaders and believes that they must be able to function freely during committee meetings. During the committee, public will come forward and use the microphone near the front table. If you intend to speak, please move towards the front of the room. I would encourage you to form a line behind the speaker. At the podium in order to minimize waiting times in between comments.

When you come to speak for committee, please start by saying your name for the record, even if you have already done so earlier. So every time you come up to the mic, please make sure that you state your name so that the record is clear. Please don't refer to anyone by name or in a derogatory manner. Again, this is for new information only. Please don't repeat what has already been said in public testimony.

If people start repeating the same points, the committee chair is going to move on to the next proposal. If substitute language is being developed or has been developed, or if you think it should be developed, please speak to what you think the substitute language says or should say. That's really helpful, and then we can, again, sort of suss out some of the nuances of issues surrounding some proposals. All right. With that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Chairman Wood, and again, just for Everybody's— so everybody's on the same page.

We're going to get into Committee of the Whole Group 1, that is commercial crab and scallops, and there are 27 proposals in this committee. Mr. Wood, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, we'll run this with the person that wrote the proposal, submitted it, speaking first, if you'd like to come up and speak to that. And anybody that would like to speak to that proposal can come up and and, you know, give your point of view and give us some new information.

And given that it's CRAB, well, there'll be some leniency on new information because it all seems like new information to me. Um, at any rate, uh, if you are wanting to speak and you hear the proposal being called out, and please start walking towards the mic, and so we don't have to wait for you to get there. And if there's nobody there, we'll just move on to the next one. If I don't even see you standing, I'm just going to move on to the next one. Okay, so be ready to talk, to speak to the proposal, and if you're not, we're just going to click through it.

All right. And then, um, yeah, and you don't have to read the whole AC, um, where you guys stand and why. I mean, why is important, but we do have all the AC comments and we are reading them, so, and they're very appreciated. So, okay, so we'll start with the department talking about Proposal 272.

Mr. Chair, members of the board, for the record, my name is Kevin Clark. I'm the Norton Sound area manager. Seated with me today is Ethan Kelso. He is our crab biologist there in Norton Sound.

Proposal 272, 5AAC 34.910, fishing seasons for registration area Q. Mr. Chair. Thank you. Would the author like to speak to this?

Uh, author? Oh yeah. Okay, Charlie.

So the author is, is not me, but he's not present either. Okay, what's your name for the record? My name is Charles Lean. I'm the Northern Norton Sound AC chair, and, uh, Anyway, I, I, we, we had a debate on this within our AC. I mentioned it, but it wasn't unanimous to, to stick with that proposal.

But we did consider a compromise of a half measure. So pulling the season back a week to, to June 25 as opposed to June or to June 15th. So that's a suggestion. And also I would point out in RC-11 management measures number 4, it speaks to meat fill. Meat fill has been an issue since the '80s at least, and this part of the intent of this proposal was to address meat fill early in the season.

So by running the seasons later might improve meat fill. Thank you. Thank you. I apologize. I meant to ask the department to give a little Cliff Note on what this number meant.

So whoever wants to speak to it, hold on. Hold your horses for a second. We'll let the department tell us what this proposal is about and then you can get up and speak to it. My apologies.

Uh, Mr. Chair, this proposal would change the starting date of the Norton Sound summer king crab season from on or after June 15th to on or after July 1st. Mr. Chair, thank you. Anyone like else like to speak to this?

Good morning. Raymond May here. For the record, I was able to participate in this fishery last year for the first time. I was able to start June 15th. On June 19th, I became aware that I no longer had markets and was scrambling with product on board to try to figure out what to do.

I cooked up a crab as markets requested. I tested the meat. I did all the— sent them all the pictures they wanted. Everybody was thriving with what we had.

My biggest concern on moving this date is water temperature. You get to 55 degrees, you kill king crab. When I got there on June 14th or June 15th and started fishing, my water temperature was 36 degrees. When I left on June 13th or July 13th, my water temperature was 53 degrees. I was starting to sweat, like, how do I keep these things alive for 1,200 miles?

I think it's going to be detrimental to them if they start July 1st. It runs into their salmon season, and when you get a quota so big, their market can only handle so much product in a day. Their market only buys from local fishermen and do not let anyone from the outside deliver. It kind of makes it a challenge for anybody else to utilize this public resource.

Can you speak to the—. To, you know, when you started fishing this last year, the year before, whenever it was, on June 15th, did you find that the crab were pretty full at that time? Yes, I got pictures on my phone from— I did it last year, and June 19th, I believe, is when the pictures were from, like cooking them up to make sure that— because I started getting nervous and Marcus started questioning me when I wasn't that familiar with it. I never had an issue with my market at all on quality of meat or fullness. They were all pretty happy we got a recovery.

Okay, thanks.

I have a question, Ray. Uh, how was the— how was the crabbing? Was it, uh, pretty productive?

Uh, I believe the GHL was like 483,000, but when you count out the I don't know what— where the numbers were on the winter fishery and the CDQs that are awarded, but it took 28 days, I believe, to prosecute that fishery with about 30 registered vessels.

Okay, thank you. And did you intend to sell there in Nome, or did you have customers you were delivering to, to the Sound? I had markets set up in Dutch Harbor to run them back there, and those markets went away after I'd started putting product on. Okay, thank you.

For the record, I'm Wes Jones. I'm the quota manager for Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation. We own Norton Sound Seafood Products, which is the primary buyer for Norton Sound red king crab. And on this proposal, be it that the Northern AC supported it not unanimously and the Southern AC did not support. We are in favor of, if, if desired, a compromise, as Mr.

Lean stated, would be acceptable to us in, in the middle ground of there. Just a note, this last summer's fishery was— we had an early early sea ice out, and so that makes major differences. When our sea ice goes out in the spring, that can be anywhere from the— these days, the middle or end of April, clear into the beginning of June. So in that timeframe, so you're talking almost a 2-month window of when things can start happening. So that plays a drastic or drastically changes how and when things are ready to be harvested, so to speak, in the spring.

So, thank you.

Any questions? I have one. So, if you— in the past, has this fishery changed dates by the department based on that sea ice cover?

I do believe they have changed the opening date based on what sea ice was there at the beginning of June. The buyer, we have also chose not to buy at the very beginning and push back that date, depending, based on what we're seeing from subsistence fishermen in terms of the meat fill. Okay, thank you. So it has, it has changed, or there's been flexibility by the department working with the processor to change that date as it stands already? Yes.

Thank you.

Anyone else like to speak to this?

Good morning. For the record, I'm Jacob Ivanoff. I'm the chair of the Southern AC, and I'm also a commercial fisherman in Norton Sound for the red king crab. The Southern Norton Sound did not support this proposal, but we were willing to compromise and have a date between June 20th to the 25th for the reasons in the East Norton Sound. The weather has some impacts with us later in the season.

It is harder for us to get out, and with my testimony yesterday, um, but it's also that earlier in the season, uh, the crab are moving off the shores from Eastern Norton Sound, and so we can get on the crab closer to Unakleet earlier in the season, like around June 15th to June 20th, and we don't have to travel as far to get onto the crab.

But we also— and one thing that I forgot to put in my testimony yesterday during our AC committee, that we also had talks in regards to having a pot limit based upon the GHL, in which the AC supported. The proposer to this proposal did not submit the amendment that we heard that he would have. But we do agree with the 20-pot limit for our local buyers to be able to process the crab during the season. Because with us, with getting over having 40 pots, is that it over— it floods their capacity to process the crab in a timely manner, and we have to hold our time to deliver the crab. But pushing the date back into July 1st is not something that we in the Eastern Norton Sound do not support because of weather.

And if we have to go and retrieve our pot at the end of the season, there it, it's get— it gets dangerous for us. Whereas with the Nome area fishermen, they have an easier capability to get to the pot. So I don't support that. Member Carpenter. Yeah, thanks, Jacob.

I'm glad you're here. I mean, I value your opinion. You live out there. I'm trying to look at this proposal and I'm trying to figure out functionally why it's important, because currently the start time is June 15th. Okay, we have rising water temperatures the later you go in the summer.

It's been testified to that the meat fill in the crab is adequate on June 15th. You talk about later in the season it becomes more of an adverse thing for your size of boat to execute in the fishery. So what's the real reason behind this proposal, if you know?

I feel that the reason behind this is to allow for the meat fill.

And I think that it may be giving the northern area fishermen a better chance to get on the crab. But that was the past time. And so with the current temperatures we have now is that, like you just heard, that east, the ice is going out earlier, the waters near shore are getting warmer, our freshwater is coming out, pushing the crab farther out. And I feel that it was just in some ways to help the northern fishermen and everybody on the eastern portion did not support it. That's very clear to me.

Thanks.

Yeah, I have to follow up on yours as well. Just trying to understand this fishery. I really appreciate this information. It seems counterproductive, counterintuitive to make the date later when you're dealing with sea ice that's going out sooner and water that's getting warmer sooner. And then you're saying the weather factor— I mean, are you seeing these warming tendencies as well?

And I am, um, with my— on my boat I have a sensor that gets the temperature. And so later in the year you're seeing like the water warming up, um, going anywhere from— hey, whether— I can't remember I can't remember your name, but the guy that came up and testified showing the temperatures at 30 to 40 degrees, and then in July it gets up to the warmer 45, 50 degrees. And so I'm seeing the warmer temperatures and we're trying to find the deeper waters where the water's cooler. But later in the season, in mid-July, it's like it does get a concerning— concern to me that, you know, when the water warmer, warmer waters is that we're having more mortality on the younger crab that are stuck in the pot. All right, thank you.

Anyone else like to speak to this? All right, if not, we'll move on to 273.

Mr. Chair, proposal 273. This proposal would give the department discretion to open Norton Sound winter king crab commercial fishery on or after February 1st in years when a commercial fishery is scheduled. Mr. Chair.

Thank you, proposer. Would you like to— is that all you'd like to say, Kevin? Okay.

Hello, Charlie Lean again.

I wrote this proposal for the Southern or the Northern AC.

The There's a, there's a history of flexibility with regard to the start date in the winter fishery. Back in the '80s, we, we started January 1, then it moved to December 15, then to November 15. I mean, November 15, December 15. January 1 was actually the first opener because the fishery started on that calendar year.

And more recently, it's February 1st.

Also, the tail end of the fishery has moved up from May 15 to April 30.

If you— I guess you didn't get RC22 in time. I didn't turn it in time, but there's There's a map, an ice map of northern Bering Sea, and if you looked at that page and I handed it to you a year or two earlier, it would have been all white. There would have been no open water. So we're seeing more and more open water. Our previous record open water was 2013 or '14.

I not quite sure anymore, but we— it goes up and down as far as ice stability.

The issue, if when the ice is unstable or thin, there's high pot loss. And I don't have the statistics in front of me, but the department's numbers from pot loss often don't consider the final pick of the year. Sometimes the season closed, but actually the ice had gone out and everybody lost their pots, so nobody went in to get new pots or new potstickers, so it wasn't recorded. So there's been some pretty heavy pot loss over the years, and I think that's a conservation issue. And if you consult the RC-11.

You can look at management action number 8 and number 9, and they both are in bold print that for extreme weather conditions, you know, there should be emergency orders taken to, to deal with that to reduce pot loss. And then Number 9 says something to the effect that the board might consider taking regulatory action.

So the ask here and is to, to do emergency order openings sometime February 1st or later, depending on ice stability and the likelihood of pot loss.

And And hopefully this initiates a discussion about who's in charge of conservation and when, when you have to draw the line and say the ice is just not good. So more and more the ice is, is going away. And at some point, these winter ice fisheries are in trouble. So that, that's it. Thank you.

Any questions?

I got one. Charlie, is there biodegradable twine on these pots as well? There is. Um, yeah, I think I've had the same biodegradable twine for 6 years on mine. Okay.

And then, um, so, and, but bio, you're, you're afraid of the, that the pot loss could conservation mean you're catching crab, but with the twine that would biodegrade, there would be no crab being able to get caught in that pot, right? Do I have it wrong? I think you have it wrong. There's— so the pots go out with the ice. There's no float or anything on the pot, see, just a rope, and it goes out.

Some of the pots bounce along the bottom and are destroyed, roughly half. Some of the pots drift out into deeper water and are suspended until they fall out of the ice and plant themselves.

About half of those pots drift out into the summer fishery area. And then they can fish indefinitely, you know, for a number of years.

And that's the concern. There's probably a quarter of the pots that are lost continue to ghost fish.

Mr. Carpenter, I'm trying to understand what you're saying, Charlie. There's biodegradable material that's available that there's, there's some that last 30 days, 45 days, and you got to replace it. Are you just saying functionally that the people in Norton Sound aren't using what's available? Because it doesn't seem to me that a pot could fish for as long as you said, 6 years, with that in there. If that's the case, then it's not in there.

So please explain why. I don't understand what you're saying. You can go down to the local office and they'll hand you, quote, biodegradable twine, and that's what I installed in my pot, and it's still holding.

Thanks, Charlie.

Sorry, Greg. Sorry, Charlie. Greg has a question for you.

So yeah, I'm understanding what, what Member Carpenter is saying, but Your pots are lasting longer, but are they submerged the whole time? Yes. Oh, so you don't pull them out and then— so they're always submerged. I mean, I'm not talking about just the ones you're talking about, the ones you use every year, right? Yes.

And they last 6 years according to you, right?

Yes. Uh, so I misunderstood your question. So I fish for a couple months every winter, and then I pull the pot out and it sits stored. So it doesn't degrade when it's out of the water, right? Apparently not.

Okay, so when it's in the water though, it should degrade quite rapidly within, and I think that's, I guess I'm thinking that that's what Mr. Carver's trying to get at, is it, or that's my question. I can see that if when it's out of the water, obviously it's not degrading, but when it's in the water, lost, it would be degrading. So those pots that wash out, are they going to be fit? If they have the biodegradable stuff in it, they shouldn't last 6 years like yours do, because yours come out all the time, back in and out, right?

We—. I don't know the answer to your question, I'm afraid. That— I think it lasts considerably longer than people think they do. Okay, well, thank you. Thank you.

Next.

For the record, Wes Jones with North Sound Economic Development Corporation. One of the things about this, that this proposal just to add in the February 1 on or after February 1 based on EO, part of that is, is that this proposal, this, the season date change was amended at the 2000 CRAB meeting. And I believe that this part was inadvertently left out, that by— or by emergency order was inadvertently left out at that time. There was many other issues that got rolled into the proposal, and that was— this was basically just an oversight or an inadvertent left out during that action. The by emergency order, if you go back through the regulations, that piece has been in regulation for the start of the winter crab fishery, you know, for 30 years prior to the change in 2020.

And it was just an oversight, I believe. Thank you. Okay, thank you for that. Anybody else have a question? Thank you.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Again, the EAC has supported this for the Eastern Norton Sound, but as a local resident in the Eastern Norton Sound, especially in Unukleet, it's rarely that we get to participate in this winter fishery due to the ice conditions. It's been more frequent that the ice is moving in and off the shore throughout the years with warming waters, warming temperatures, not being thick enough. And I understand the department's stance on this and that they don't have anybody that's able to test the conditions. But if they just talk with the local buyer and local people and seeing what their thoughts are on the conditions of the ice, they don't need to be experts on this. I mean, it's just like, I understand that, But people that are within the northern area that knows the ice can tell the difference.

And I want to talk a little bit about with what Charlie was saying on the biodegradable twine is that I'm a subsistence user, a commercial fisherman, and the twine does go out. Last year, I'm having to change my twine every year, even if my pots are in there just for a month. Even though that my twine is degradin', my pot was still catching pots when I was crabbing. Like mid-season, I had to change my twine on some of the pots and I was only getting, well, I was getting like 40 per pot, but it's showing that they're still coming in and staying in the pot, even though your twine is degrading. But I do support that, giving the department the ability to do an EO based upon the eyes.

Due to the climate conditions. And so it's like where we're at now in compared to 20 or to 2000s, it like, we're seeing constant change in the weather. I was taught by my elders and how to read the weather from our area. And we can't do that anymore. So these changes are affecting the ice conditions.

And so you can see the ice and the instability of the ice. So I do believe that we need to make it to where it's an EO from the department and not open on February 1st due to the pot loss, because there's a big mortality in with pots that are being lost in the winter fishery.

Um, I've got a question. So for you, Don Unocleat, would it be safer to— the ice be safer earlier than February 1st for your fishing season? No, it would be safer later in the year. I've gone in, I can go out there in like March timeframe or April sometimes. Some years I got out there in April, but for us and up north, like in Shaktoolik and those areas, it's safer for them to get out there the end of February, beginning of March because there's less wind and less shift in the ice.

Okay, thank you.

All right, any more comments? We'll move on to 273 or 4.

Mr. Chair, proposal 274. This proposal, if adopted, would increase the minimum— I mean, would increase the minimum legal male red king crab size from 4.75 inches to 5 inches in carapace width and adjust escapement mechanisms to adhere to the new legal minimum size limit. Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Would like to speak to this? The author. Hello, Charlie Lean again. So, so the proposal didn't make it all into the proposal book.

So the The rationale behind this is to— I first should state that the market minimum is 5-inch crab. The legal size is 4¾-inch crab.

The legal size has been pretty much the same since the year after the start of the fishery, 1978, until present. Although for the past 6 years, the market has demanded 5-inch crab.

This came into play in 2019, 2020, 2021 when we had a high recruitment and very few older large crab. So the population estimate was saying there was a good number of crab, but in practice fishermen were finding fewer crab. In fact, 2019, the season drug on and on and on, and it was finally closed by regulation in September. The— so the staff comments say that there'd be virtually no No difference between the two size limits, 4-inch and quarter, 5-inch in the coming year or the past year. And that's true because all the crab are beyond legal size.

It—. I don't think it will be true in the relatively near future. About 2027, we're expecting a big recruitment.

We're hoping for a big recruitment.

And then as far as escape mechanisms go, I played with proportions from fisheries to the south, uh, Privalof's, Bristol Bay, and other king crab fisheries. And the result was that the, uh, if you were trying to upsize escape rings to meet the 5-inch standard, they go up a quarter inch in diameter and the mesh size would go from 6.5 inches to 7 inches. So basically my proposal said that I didn't think changing the escape mechanisms was worthy.

So anyway. I think that's it. Thank you. Any questions?

I've got one. Charlie, so from the— what you've witnessed, I mean, is there a biological— you've mentioned it's market-driven, but is there a biological need to switch it from 4¾ to 5 in your opinion? It has to do with the population model and the determining the GHL. And that's— so if your legal limit's smaller than the functional limit, then you think you have more crab than you have. Then you can— what happened was people kept fishing and scratching along and hoping to catch a crab that was big enough to sell, and there weren't any.

And it's not economic and it's biologically unsound to to handle a bunch of crab. So you're— so basically you're questioning the department's modeling and how they apply this size. Right. I would like to see, especially on high recruit years, a model that talks about the 5-inch functional standard. And I think that's worthwhile.

You know, the market determines 5 inches, but that's not really the intent of the proposal. It was not to change the functional limit. It's the modeling.

Thank you. Anyone else like to speak to this?

Okay. We'll move on to 275.

Can I go back to 273? You moved a little quicker than—. Yeah, but if you guys really intend to speak, wait in line, get up there. You're going to miss your turn. Yeah.

Yeah, I apologize for that. Again, my name is Jake Bimernoff. I'm a commercial user. Commercial fishermen in the East Norton Sound and in participating Norton Sound crab fisheries, and everybody in the fleet already has it set up to where we are doing the 5-inch crab. And so we don't have any— we don't— we won't have to make many changes for this to come into effect, and we agree with the proposer to make these changes.

Because it's, it's what the market wants to see. And it's also like what he said is based upon all the capture recapture of the smaller males and letting go, it's spending more time to sit there and actually look to see if the crab is of size. So I do support changing it to the 5-inch since our fleet is already set and ready for that. There is not going to have any negative impacts on the commercial fleet in Norton Sound. So a lot of the fishermen do support changing it to the 5-inch.

Okay, thank you. Ray?

Raymond May. On this proposal, I can live with either direction doing this fishery. But I look back and I go, a legal opilio is 3.25 inches. That's determined by the department. But market wants 4-inch.

If you move 4.75 to 5-inch for illegal crab in Norton Sound, you just open up another way for the department or for enforcement to kind of be on top of those crab. Right now you got a little grace period. Nobody wants to keep less than 5-inch. If the department thinks illegal crab is 4.75 and that's what they're doing the biomass off of, I think that's where we leave it, in my opinion. I don't like— I don't like having no grace period on that Measure in a Crab for anybody.

I can live with it, but I think it's— there's going to create an issue there for everyone for enforcement. Okay, thank you. Moving on to 275.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board. For the record, my name is Ethan Nichols, area management biologist for Bering Sea Aleutian Islands Groundfish and Shellfish. Proposal 275. The intent of this proposal is to provide opportunity to revise and update the Bristol Bay Red King Crab Harvest Strategy used to set annual harvest limits.

Exploration towards this effort indicates more comprehensive analysis is needed to effectively provide options and recommend changes to the existing management strategy. The scope of this work extends beyond what could be accomplished this regulatory cycle, so the department recommends taking no action on this Department proposal. Mr. Chair, thank you. Department proposal, and they recommend taking no action.

So anyone want to speak to it? Okay, we'll move on to 277.

Proposal 277. This was established an open access state waters golden king crab fishery in the waters of Area O. East of 169 west longitude. We have proposed management plan provisions, provisions including a regulatory season of September 1st to April 30th with the JHL set annually. Vessel participation would be limited to vessels 58 feet and under.

This would be for single pot gear only and no more than 90 pots per vessel. Gear hauling gear would be limited to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily with catch reported daily to the department. This would also close waters of Registration Area O, the state waters of Registration Area O east of 169, to longline king crab pot gear. Mr. Chair, thank you.

And was just a— there's an RC for this, RC 47. Was that what from Member Carpenter? That's what you just wrote. Okay. Would anyone like to speak to this?

Very briefly, as the writer of the proposal, I'm in full support of the RC. It has some changes from the bullet points that I had started with, but as I told you yesterday, I don't conceive myself as writing language. So the language is a compromise among those that spoke against it and myself that spoke for it yesterday. And with that, I'm done. Thanks.

Thank you. Next.

Yeah, good morning. Steve Ricci for the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation. First, I just want to say thank you to the board members and the proposal author. We were able to come to a compromise. We were originally opposed to this as it was written.

So RC-47 is a result of those discussions. I do want to say that the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation does have concerns about potential expansion of this fishery in future years, and I hope that's something that the, the board keeps in mind, that the CDQ program and the rationalization program does provide access to Alaskans in this fishery and in many fisheries. So thank you. Thank you. Next.

West Jones with Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation for the record. Again, I'll reiterate Mr. Ricci's point that we were very thankful to work with the board members and the proposer to alleviate many of our concerns. We do still have concerns. I think the biggest concern is that this raises a much broader statewide issue when it comes to rationalized fisheries versus small fisheries. And the idea that we keep— that many fisheries are small fisheries are created at the— could be the expense of the rationalized fisheries.

And so that's a point that it seems to be coming up more and more here, that, um, and that's some of the concern here with, uh, with this proposal on a broader space. So thank you. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to 278.

Mr. Chair, proposal 278. This would establish a 2,500 pot limit for vessels in the Aleutian Islands golden king crab fishery. Mr. Chair, would anyone like to speak to this, starting with the author?

Okay. Seeing— Linda, better put on your running shoes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, Linda Kozak.

I work with the Alaska Trojan. We submitted RC44 last night to ask the board to take no action on this proposal as a compromise between the parties has been reached. And we want to thank those board members who were instrumental in assisting in mediating, if you will, and assisting us in reaching that compromise. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, we'll move on to Proposal 276. Mr. Chair, Proposal 276. This would increase the pot storage depth limit from waters 75 fathoms or less in depth to 100 fathoms or less in depth for longline king crab pot gear in the Aleutian Islands golden king crab fishery. Mr.

Chair, would anyone like to speak to this? Go ahead. Hi, I'm Corey Kohl off the Alaska Trojan. Unfortunately, the proposer couldn't be here, but I spoke with him this morning and he asked me if I would explain his, his stance on this, which is the edge is really steep out there. So even though you think you're storing gear from 75 fathoms in, you really can't get with inside of 40 fathoms because if you do, our pots are about 80 fathoms apart, which when you're sitting in bad weather and heavy current, you'll get loops in it, you know.

And sometimes there's been issues in the summertime where small boats have actually got our ground line in their wheel. So by going out to 100, it allows us to broaden the area where we can store gear, and it's just safer for everybody. So that's kind of all he wanted to say on it. Okay, thank you.

We'll move on to 279.

Mr. Chair, proposal 279. This would prohibit vessels from sharing and operating cooperative pot gear while both vessels are registered and participating in the rationalized Aleutian Islands golden king crab fishery west of 174 west longitude. And to clarify, this would, this would still allow for vessels to do a final clean-out of another vessel's gear after vessels have checked out of the fishery. Mr.

Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Linda Kozak again, for the record. This proposal was put in as a companion proposal for the pot limits, and without the pot limit, being put into effect, we feel this proposal has even more merit for the gear sharing provision to occur at the end of the season to reduce waste, reduce dead loss, and to be able to provide an even playing field for a vessel when they are finished with their IFQ fishery and they've checked out. Another vessel could clean up the remainder of their gear and store that gear for them.

We don't believe that a good use of this gear sharing provision would be for vessels to send multiple vessels out to preempt grounds. And so we feel this is more of a situation that would create a level playing field. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak to this?

Okay. 290.

Mr. Chair, for the record, my name is Nat Nichols. I'm the area manager for commercial shellfish and groundfish fisheries in the Kodiak, Chignik, and South Alaska Peninsula areas. Proposal 290 would change the season opening date for the Kodiak District commercial Tanner crab fishery from January 15 to February 20. Mr.

Chair, thank you. Would anyone like to speak to this?

290. There we go.

Good morning. My name is Julie Cavanaugh from Kodiak. I'm speaking on behalf of myself. We're opposed to Proposal 290. I would note that the Kodiak AC was opposed also, 0 to 14.

We feel that this date change would cause conflicts between other existing fisheries and create problems for processors in Kodiak that are dealing with fishery— other ongoing fisheries and And then also, as noted by, I believe, staff comments, it could be about— there could be a biological concern with the date shifted back and also a foregone harvest because the fishery closes March 31st, and putting the— setting the start date back so late creates a very short window for harvesting opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak to this? Okay, we'll move on to 289.

Mr. Chair, proposal 289 would establish a fixed pot limit of 20 pots per vessel in the Kodiak District commercial Tanner crab fishery. Mr. Chair, thank you.

Good morning, Julie Kavanaugh. This time I'm speaking for the Kodiak AC AC. This proposal was unanimously supported by the AC. We feel that it is in the best interest of that fishery to have a well-managed fishery, and the, the fishery representatives on the AC felt like having the pot limit set at 20 and not having a sliding scale for higher GHLs wouldn't make a difference, that the harvesting capacity of 20 pots was sufficient in times of high GHSLs to be able to capture the quota. So thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right, we'll move on at 282. Mr. Chair, proposal 280— proposal 282.

This would amend escape mechanism requirements for Kodiak District. Kodiak District of Registration Area J commercial Tanner crab gear. This would require that rectangular and pyramid pots would need to use at least 1/3 of a vertical surface composed of not less than 6.75-inch stretch mesh webbing. Cone pots would be required to use the same stretch mesh webbing or have at least 8 escape rings, not less than 5-inch— 5 inches. Mr.

Chair. Thank you, Judy. Thanks for being there. Looks like I might be here for a few more. Um, good morning, my name is Julie Cavanaugh.

I'm speaking on behalf of myself, and the actual proposer who wrote it is my husband. Uh, since the inception of the Kodiak Tanner crab fishery, um, the participants have, um, have freely accepted and, and desired different inefficiencies for this fishery, for the health of the stock. They have daylight hour fishing only, the pot limits that we just talked about that we want to set at 20, and a fair start window so that all boats can fish at the same. So we voluntarily and almost unanimously agreed to all of these, and this is another step towards the conservation and protection of these stocks. In the language in the proposal is, uh, the proposal is set so that, um, I think that the, the verbiage is there for you to pass.

I don't think you'd have to tweak anything or come up with an RC. Basically what this does is it increases the mesh size on both cone pots and square pots and allows for sublegal and female Tanner crab to be able to leave the pot easier and it reduces sorting and mortality associated with that. So, and we feel like it would be a conservation measure. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else like to speak to this? All right. We'll move on to 284. Mr. Chair, proposal 284 would allow Tanner crab catcher vessels to simultaneously tender Tanner crab from other Tanner crab catcher vessels in the Kodiak District of Registration Area J. Mr.

Chair. Okay, Julie. Yeah, thank you. Julie Cavanaugh speaking on behalf of myself. We would like to support RC-19 that requests adding Chignik and South Penn to this proposal and also support RC-46 that has substitute language that includes all three areas: Kodiak, Chignik, and South Penn.

We think that this would be a huge economical benefit to all these fleets, especially small boats. It would make them safer when there's weather windows— there aren't weather windows available for transport. And we would appreciate your consideration. Thank you. Thank you.

Question. Julie, you said you supported substantive language found in RC 46, but there was one before that to roll in the Chignik South Panel. So I think RC 19. Got it. And I think that's from a participant from that area.

Thanks, I just wanted to make sure I had this noted. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? Oh, sorry.

Good morning. For the record, Carlin Hoblett. Uh, as the department staff mentioned, the Kodiak, Chignik, and South Bend Bairdi are very predictable and even cyclical and predictable, but this proposal makes absolute sense when we're on either side of these peak years.

For a brief snapshot, over the past 4 seasons, the South Penn mean poundage per vessel was 11,000 pounds, 22,000 pounds, 12,000 pounds, and 7,000 pounds.

And when there are vessels participating that can pack up to 60,000, 70,000 pounds, and there are also vessels participating that can pack 6,000 or 8,000 pounds, um, it makes a lot of sense to be able to combine for safety and for financial advantages. On top of that, we have, uh, the market issues in the region. With this past season. Initially, Sandpoint facility was not willing to take all of the fleet's crab, so we were scrambling at the beginning of the season to figure out where we were going to go or where we're going to take them, with hopes that if we only caught 5,000 pounds and had to run Kodiak, that we weren't going to go backwards, basically. So that's all I have.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks for shedding light on the reality of that. Thank you.

Good morning. Julie Kavanaugh again. I forgot one little detail that adding Chignik and South Penn is helpful with the Kodiak proposal because there's an overlap area called the Semidees, and including Chignik would then resolve the issue of whether or not tendering Tanner crab in that area would be legal or not. No, thank you. Great.

Thank you. Okay, we'll go on to 285. Mr. Chair, proposal 285 would repeal and replace the South Peninsula District Tanner Crab Harbor strategy with management components derived from the Registration Area A Tanner Crab Harbor strategy. Current South Peninsula District pot limits and vessel length limits would remain.

Mr. Chair, anyone like to speak to this? Seeing none, we'll go on to 286.

Mr. Chair, Proposal 286 would repeal the South Peninsula District Tanner Crab Harvest Strategy and replace it with a size/sex/season management regime. Mr. Chair, anyone out there want to speak to it? Okay, we'll move on to 287.

Mr. Chair, for the record, Ethan Nichols, Department of Fish and Game, Area Management Biologist, Bering Sea Aleutian Islands. Proposal 287 would adjust the annual Bering Sea District tanner crab TAC, or total allowable catch, calculation and the regulatory harvest strategy. The intent of the proposal is to align the harvest strategy with a reduction in industry-preferred tanner crab size, otherwise known as the exploited legal male or ELM size, from 127mm, which is 5 inches carapace width, to a size to be determined by the department based on landed sizes from the previous open season's retained catch. It is unspecified in the proposal what measure or methodology the department should use to compute the ELM from the previous season's retained catch, although the proposal identifies that ELMs should be no lower than 4.4 inches west of 166 west longitude and 4.8 inches east of 166 longitude.

Mr. Chair. Okay. Would anyone like to speak to this?

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the board. I'm Jamie Goehn with Alaska Bearing Sea Crabbers. I submitted an RC this morning. As you heard in public testimony yesterday, we spoke to a 4.5-inch western Bairdi size.

That also aligns with a comment by the Crab Industry Advisory Committee in public comment 193. That's a group that's both harvesters and processor representatives that had agreed to a 4.5-inch size just for Western Bairdi. All of us agree that that would help better align with the legal size of Bairdi in the West, which is 4.4 inches. So the 4.5 inches would better align with that. It helps reduce our discarding.

And also in the West, we're finding that crab mature at a smaller size. We think maybe— actually, the department can answer this better, but we think it may be due to environmental conditions and water temperatures. But the crab are smaller in the West. Happy to answer any questions. Member Carpenter.

Yeah, Jamie, what was that RC you said you submitted? What's the number? Do you know the number yet? I didn't see one before I came up here. I just submitted it this morning.

All right, I'll look for it. And then the other part of my question is, do you think through your conversations with the marketplace, is there a clear understanding between most of these people that this is something that is— that they want or that they're willing to accept?

Through the chair, Mr. Carpenter, if you go in a grocery store in the lower 48, they will often market Bairdi as snow crab. And much of our market in the U.S. comes from Canada for snow crab, which goes down to 3.7-inch 3.75 inches. So there's much smaller size in the market for the consumer, but we are trying to make a distinction for Bairdi in the markets because we think it's a more premier crab. It tends to be a little bit bigger than snow crab. Okay, thank you.

I just wanted to add, it's, it's not distributed yet, but it will be RC48. I just checked with our staff. Thanks, Art.

You mentioned that it would align with other measurements in other— with other crabs, sorry, other measurements elsewhere. Where was that? Yeah, what I was speaking to is it more aligns with the legal size of Bairdi in the West. So the legal size is 4.4 inches, and then the industry preferred size we're asking for is 4.5 inches. Thank you.

Next.

Good morning. My name is Sinclair Wilt. I'm with Westward Seafoods. We have two crab processing facilities in Alaska, Dutch Harbor. While I haven't seen the new RC submitted this morning, in general we are opposed to reducing the size.

It hinders the market, whether it's Whether the last speaker says it's marketed as snow crab or not, it is marketed by size. There is division as we process into size ranges. So the smaller the average pack, the lower the value. It also drives up labor costs to reduce sizes. It takes just as much labor to process a a small crab as it does a big crab.

And but it takes more small crab to fill up a box. So it, it would drive smaller size limit, drives up our operating costs and lowers the value. For this, we're opposed to any size reduction. Thank you. Any questions?

Okay. We'll move on to 288. Go ahead. Better boogie.

Standing on the wrong side of the room. Thank you. My name is Jim Stone. I'm a crab fisherman, Bering Sea, and I approve of this. Hope you pass this.

I think one misnomer is that the western Paradise section is kind of a misnomer being west. It's actually more north. And those are much smaller animals than the same ones we catch down here in the Gulf. There's—. They just— colder water.

They don't get as big. Some of these will never reach past 4.5 inches, the terminal molt, especially the farther north we go. On the—. As far as the processing side goes, we thought that processors were in favor of this. They went to the PINSIAC meeting and approved it.

It. I understand there's some concerns about pricing. We'll try to work with processors and try to get something that's more equitable to them. But that's all. Thanks.

Okay, I just got a question for you. So just to clarify, you're saying that they are maturing— you're finding that they are maturing at a smaller size on average now, and that's, that's why you think this would be worth it for you? The western section, which is really the northwestern portion. Yes, they do. They do mature at a much smaller size.

They just don't get bigger. Great. Thank you.

One more point for the record. Jamie Gowan with Alaska Bearing Sea Crabbers. Just wanted to highlight that our fishermen are bringing in 4.5-inch western Bairdi this year. So they are already coming in. What we're asking for through this proposal is to get credit in the TAC calculation so that our harvest levels could accommodate that.

Thank you.

Okay. We'll move on to 302. Is that right? Mr. Chair, I think 288.

Oh, thank you. Lost track. Thanks for keeping me in line. Proposal 288. Mr.

Chair, Proposal 288. This would adjust the annual Bering Sea District commercial snow crab total allowable catch calculation in the regulatory harvest strategy. The intent of the proposal is to align the commercial harvest strategy with a reduction in industry preferred snow crab size, otherwise known as the exploited legal male size, from 4 inches carapace width to a size to be determined by the department based on landed sizes from the previous open season's retained catch. It is unspecified in the proposal what measure or methodology the department should use to compute the ELM from the previous season's retained catch, although the proposal identifies that measure— that measure should result in an ELM that is at least 95 millimeters or 3.74 inches in size. Mr.

Chair. Great. Anyone like to speak to this?

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Sinclair Wilt with Westward Seafoods, with representing Westward. We have two crab processing facilities in Alaska, Dutch Harbor.

For the same, my comments for the last proposal applied this too. We are opposed to reducing size.

I have processed many, many millions of pounds of opilio or snow crab in my 48-year career. And the speed you can process if you have a 1-pound average versus you get a 1.3-pound average is quite a bit. Our labor costs go up if smaller crab are delivered. So that's just to be consistent with my prior testimony. Thank you.

Any other questions? Any other comments? All right. We're going to take a break here, 10 minutes, and we'll finish the other half of this. Well, thanks.

Okay everybody, you see this blistering pace we're setting here, so buckle up. We're going to start with, uh, 291. From the department and then be ready to get up and testify. Thank you.

Yeah, no.

Oh, oh, my— was— did anyone have any last minute thoughts on 288? Apparently I cut you off. Going once, going twice on 288. We're going to start with 291.

Mr. Chair, for the record, Ethan Nichols, area manager and biologist, Bering Sea Aleutian Islands. Proposal 291 would formalize the closure of Bristol Bay waters east of 163 west longitude to directed Tanner crab fishing. Mr. Chair, thank you.

Author like to speak to this, or anyone? Departments? Okay. Is anyone like to comment on this? All right, not happening.

Okay, 283.

Mr. Chair, proposal 283. This would allow commercial snow and Tanner crab pot gear to be longlined in the Bering Sea District. Mr. Chair, anyone like to comment on 283?

Going once, twice. We're on to 292.

Mr. Chair, Proposal 292 would amend Area J Tanner crab landing requirements by removing delivery timelines while still specifying that vessels with Tanner crab on board may not be used for any purpose except those— except for traveling to port to make a delivery. Mr. Chair, thank you. Anyone want to comment on 292?

Oh man, silence. All righty, we'll move on to 294. Mr. Chair, we're moving into Dungeness now. Proposal 294 would establish a 58-foot vessel length limit for the Alaska Peninsula District commercial Dungeness crab fishery.

Mr. Chair, thank you. Any comments? Here we go.

Morning. For the record, Ernie Weiss, uh, I guess speaking today for, uh, the proposer. He can't be here, he's out fishing.

The borough—. I'm with the Aleutians East Borough as well. The borough thinks it's a good idea. I would note that King Cove AC supported it. Anchorage AC also did.

I note also that Dutch Harbor thought maybe it was okay, but you might want to grandfather in those 1 or 2 boats that have participated in this. But I would mention all the other state fisheries in the region are based on that 58-foot limit salmon vessel. And this would keep that with all the other cod salmon fisheries. So thanks. That's all I got.

Thank you. Anyone else like to speak to this? Okay. We'll move on to 296. Mr.

Chair, proposal 296 would amend registration area J Dungeness crab vessel inspection requirements by clarifying that vessel inspections are not required in area J unless unless the department specifically requires vessel inspections by emergency order. Mr. Chair, would anyone like to speak to 296? Not seeing any takers, we'll move on to 297.

Mr. Chair, proposal 297 would amend Dungeness crab pot gear operation requirements for registration area J to allow a person or vessel participating in a commercial Pacific cod pot gear fishery in Registration Area J to operate Pacific cod pot gear in the 14 days prior to Dungeness crab fishing. This would also allow vessels participating in the Dungeness crab fishery to simultaneously participate in directed sablefish fisheries using pot gear. Mr. Chair, thank you.

Comments? Yeah.

Good morning. My name is Julie Kavanaugh. As an— as a I'm Vice Chair of the Kodiak AC. I'd like to note that the AC supported this 11 to 2. They thought there was very little overlap and that there wasn't a conservation concern.

I'd like to also address it personally for— make some personal comments.

By allowing vessels to operate pot gear in two fisheries at the same time, I feel like you're disadvantaging the state water Dungeness fishery in Kodiak. It's an open access fishery, and I see a fleet of boats that are moving into pot gear, and I think that you would see an increased participation in an open access fishery. I think that that's an unfair advantage because state water fishers without IFQs can't reciprocate and do the same thing. They can't participate in a rationalized fishery, they're, they're blocked out of it. And so you're basically saying the federal fisher can operate in both fisheries, but the state fisher can't.

So that was my concern. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? All right.

We'll go on to 293. Mr. Chair, proposal 293 would change the Kodiak District commercial Dungeness crab fishery opening date from 12 noon May 1st to 12 noon June 1st north of the latitude of Boot Point and Cape Ikalik, and from 12 noon June 15th to 12 noon June 1st south of the latitude of Boot Point and Cape Ikalik. Additionally, this proposal would change the closure date for the Kodiak District Dungeness Fishery from 11:59 PM October 31st to 12 noon November 30th. Mr.

Chair. Thank you. Comments?

Yeah, thank you. Good morning. My name is Julie Kavanaugh. As the vice chair of the Kodiak AC, I would like to point out that we supported this proposal 12 to 2, again noting that there was an amendment to change the end date from November 30th to November 15th. I just think I need to highlight that that amendment was kind of a compromise for— there was a couple of AC members that were opposed to lengthening the season.

And so that, that change in date of 2 weeks is— was basically kind of a compromise for them. It didn't have anything to do with the department's concern about gear loss. So I just wanted to make sure you understood why that date change was proposed. And then I'll go into my personal comments, if that's okay. Definitely need to delineate between my two jobs as an AC member versus being— making some personal comments.

So Proposal 293 was proposed by my husband, changing the start date from May 1st to June 1st. Was to acknowledge the fact that there's a high percentage of crab that have soft shells. In May, they are just crawling out of the mud, and due to their condition, they are more vulnerable, and there is potential for higher dead loss. So in May, there, there's more sorting, there's more maybe mortality associated with that sorting. And also the start date changing from May 1st to June 1st allows for vessels for the whole island to have a fair start.

Right now there's kind of— there's two different start dates and they start in one area in May and they start in another area. And I can't remember the start date for the second— for the south end. But putting the start date at the same time in June spreads the fleet out and, and it encourages them not to get compacted into just certain bays, it'll spread them out over, over a period of time. I also wanted to address the concern for gear loss later in the year that staff said. So in March of 2022, the board implemented a 500-pot limit in Kodiak for Dungeness.

Prior to that, there would be boats that had anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 pots on the grounds, and we feel that this new pot limit has, has prevented gear loss in the fall because boats don't have to make as many trips to bring their gear home. Gets a little bit more difficult if you're, if you're pushing out, going in and bringing your gear in, and then have a weather window that prevents you to get down there. With, with this new pot limit, we have like an unintended positive effect Basically, 2 trips is all it takes for, for some of these vessels to bring their gear in. And so we feel that this concern for gear loss is mitigated with the pot limit that the board implemented in 2022. And we would— and anyways, if I can— if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

I did do not want to note there is one or two operators in May that have— that do harvest fish in May, and they would be adversely affected by this date change. But we think that the biological advantages of changing it to June 1st is, is something that should be considered by the board. Thank you. You have a question? Oh, hi, Julie.

So I think you might have just touched on it, but my question was going to be, is this going to present conflicts with salmon, either for those that harvest or tender. You know, I'm just kind of curious. Through the chair, thank you. I think that what I would say is that putting— being able to put your Dungeness gear out prior to an opening, an opening, a salmon opening, is definitely helpful, right? There's— right now they can— there's— you can go out and put your gear out anytime in May, and then salmon starts in June.

But I think that the overlap of a salmon opener and a June 1st start date for Dungeness is very minimal. We've only ever— I, I can only ever remember one year where we had a salmon opening in the first week, you know, like in the first, in the first of June or prior. I think you'd have to ask staff, but I think it was one year where we were open early enough where it would cause a conflict. Yeah. So it's not just like the salmon openers around the island, but if there are boats that are tendering in Bristol Bay, for example, and need to be on contract by, you know, early June or something.

I don't know. I just was just kind of wondering if that's something that we might residually hear about. Back to unintended consequences. I don't know. I just was curious if you had any insight to that.

Yeah, thank you. Through the— I guess you are the chair right now. Oh, okay. Through the chair, um, I have no knowledge of a boat that goes fishing in a different area that would need to set their gear, because if they, if they were setting their gear and then going fishing elsewhere, they wouldn't be able to tend their Dungeness gear. So you wouldn't leave gear in the water and then be gone for 6 weeks to Bristol Bay.

That's just not something that can happen. Yeah, I get it, but if you have a May 1 start date, they could put— set their gear May 1, tend to their gear, retrieve it, and then head to the bay. I don't know, I was just curious. So, but yeah, I think the number of operators operating in May are really small, and I think that that's— I, I think that that's, um, you could also say that extending the season in the fall would add additional opportunity for those same vessels to fish after salmon ended. So you would be— you could be— you could say that you're balancing that effect.

Thanks. I had a question. It said there, the Kodiak AC wanted some amendments of the change of dates. Can— and they were different than the proposal. It was like June 15th and November 15th.

Can you address that? Yeah, so when we were talking about it, there was a couple of AC members that had some concerns that extending the date farther in the fall would add some stress on sport and subsistence fishing. And so they were— they just didn't see any advantage to their sector to have this— the commercial sector have an extended season. And so there was a— the amendment that you see there from November 30th to November 15th was to try to maybe just come to a compromise. I think that was the only reason for that amendment.

There wasn't any— there wasn't any concern by the fleet or our staff that I'm aware of. It was just maybe to see if we could get everybody on board for the proposal. But that was not— we still had the same members concerned with that. So It was brought up in discussion at the AC that subsistence and sport is a 12-month fishery, so they do have access for a full 12 months and have— I think they can have— I think they can retain 12 crab a day. I'm not sure if that's the right number or not, but so both sides didn't agree on what how much reasonable— what was reasonable access on that.

But that amendment language of November 15th was for that purpose. It didn't have anything to do with staff's concerns or anything. It was just specifically that. And then I did at public testimony point out that in our support language, there was a typo of having the start date be June 15th. That we never did have a— have an amendment for June 15th.

It was always supposed to be June 1st.

Okay, any other questions? All right, thank you. We'll move on to 295. Oh, better move fast around here. Hello, my name is Brian Blonden.

I've been fishing Kodiak Dungeness for 15, 20 years, and my father and uncle have been fishing for 40-plus years. There is boats that fish in May until like June 15th. They go to Bristol Bay, go to Chignik.

Biological reasons, and the crab don't come out of the mud soft. They come out hard. They get soft, you know, they molt, they molt. In May, June, July, and August and September. Different bays, different—.

You got sand crab or mud crab, they do it at different times. It's pretty unique area. I think the proposal is trying to get more area or more time in the Southwest District because it starts at June 15th, a month and a half later than the east side. So I think if they want more time, they can start earlier. I agree with that.

Salmon, there's been recently not a big, you know, starting in June, but it's 700. I think she said 500, 700 pot limit, and it takes a while to get all your gear in the water and fishing before you want to hit a salmon opener. And yeah, that's all I got. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. You're going to speak. All right. Jason, a Kodiak resident, Dungey fisherman for 20 years. I would like to make sure you guys consider opening it in November.

The department had an issue with it and closed it because of the ghost fishing in the last year. I'm a small boat. The proposer and some of the people he talked to that thought it was a good idea are all very large vessels. So it's not much of an advantage for us to take away May with longer days and nicer weather to add it on in November. And I am for us all starting at the same time, but I would say no later than May 15th for a start date for a unified opening.

Great. Thanks for that information.

Yeah, thank you. I apologize, I got the number wrong on the pot limit. You got to do your name again. Oh, sorry. Julie Kavanaugh.

Thank you. From Kodiak. Speaking for myself, I apologize, I got the pot limit number wrong. I definitely shouldn't have done that. And I think that we would prefer a January, uh, fair start.

I think we would be amendable to a May 15th, but recognizing that then the benefit to the, the, the crab where we, we feel like there's a lot of soft crab in the water would be reduced by 2 weeks. But we would definitely be amendable to a fair start of, of May 15th. And an end date of November 30th. Thank you. Excuse me, wait one second.

Did you mention January? Did I mishear you? In my previous comments, I mentioned that the subsistence and sport fish was January to December. And if I said January just now, I meant June, not January. Sorry.

Thank you. All right. And then I heard you say May 15th. Yeah, I think that would be a compromise. We do have some concerns about it.

Thanks.

Okay, we'll move on to 295. Mr. Chair, proposal 295 would align Dungeness crab commercial fishing season dates for the North Peninsula District of Registration Area J with all other Dungeness districts in Area J, meaning that it would, it would make that season date in North Peninsula May 1 through October 31. Mr. Chair, thank you.

Anyone like to speak to this 295? All right, we'll move on to 298.

Mr. Chair, proposal 298. This proposal seeks to close state waters in the Yakutat, Prince William Sound, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor areas to commercial scallop fishing using dredge gear. And allow commercial scallop fishing with other experimental gear types in these areas. It would also establish an 800-pound trip limit and remove VMS requirements and onboard observer requirements in state waters.

Mr. Chair. Thank you. Proposer, want to speak to it? Yes.

My name is Tom Gilmar, and I own a small 50-foot catcher processor, and I put that proposal in for this and it says here amend State Waters Scallop Weather Vane, Weather Vane Management Plan. There is no State Waters Management Plan for scallops. This is the one that was let sunset by the legislature and it's only used to run the federal water fishery that the state manages. So we need to form State Waters Management Plan for scallops, and then we could add all these suggested changes to this in my proposal here. Okay.

Okay. Any questions? Thank you. All right. More comments?

Jim Stone, Alaska Scallop Association. There is a state management plan, and their scallops are managed jointly between the feds and the department. Our— most of our scallop beds are— well, not most. A lot of our scallop beds are bifurcated by the Three Mile line so that part of the bed will be in federal waters, part of the bed will be in state waters. They're— but they're managed together.

If we were to leave part of the state, and I've testified to that earlier, but it would be very hard for us to dredge on one side and avoid the other side. It'd be very hard. We could probably do it, but it would be difficult and subject to fines and whatnot. What I don't understand is why the proposer hasn't come to us with some proof, maybe a sport pot, a commissioner's permit or something. There's lots of areas in the state, in bays all across the state, bays and inlets that are prolific with, with scallops that the department could work with someone on that we're not allowed to go into.

We can't bring dredges into, into those kind of places. We have to be offshore. So, um, anyway, I suggest you oppose this as written. Thanks.

Okay, any questions? No. Thank you for your testimony. All right, we'll move on to 280. Mr.

Chair, proposal 280. This would remove the regulatory performance standards for at-sea observer providers that no longer reflect current observer recruitment and retention trends, do not yield improved data, and are generally unenforceable. Mr. Chair, anyone like to speak to 280?

Okay. Wow, we're moving right on to the last one, 281.

Mr. Chair, proposal 281. This would modify observer trainee qualifications by removing the statistics course requirement. Mr. Chair.

Thanks. Any comments on this?

Wow. Lightning speed. But I'm going to add one more to the end here.

We have to—. Right? Yeah. Okay. There's one last thing that we have to throw out there, and it's the report in PC 5-0, right?

Would you like to speak to that, Art?

Thank you.

As I brought to Mr. Wood's attention this morning, we have a crab observer oversight task force that was last reviewed at the last statewide shellfish meeting and was renewed in a finding and said that the board would review it again at the next Statewide Shellfish meeting, here we are. So this could be an opportunity for the public to give any input on the current makeup of the committee, whether there's any need to change that, and whether the public wants to see that committee continue into the future. So would you like—. Anyone like to comment on that? Mr. Bowers.

Uh, thanks, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I was just going to note that You know, this committee advises the department on observer deployments in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands crab fisheries. You know, we've found it to be a useful process to work with this committee, and I believe either Ms. Cohen or Mr. Lesher, who are representatives of that committee, are here, and they might be able to speak to speak to PC 50. Thanks.

Thank you.

Go ahead, state your name. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Uh, Corey Lesher with Alaska Brank Sea Crabbers. I'm the co-chair of Crab Observer Oversight Task Force.

Um, my apologies, wasn't ready this morning to speak to this, but, um, yeah, we, we would like, uh, the board to consider renewal of the task force. And I think the last thing that I would like to say up here is just to recognize and acknowledge Ms. Kozak's time on the task force. And she's retiring, stepping down, and she's done a great job chairing and leading that task force.

Thanks so much. Any other comments?

I think if you have thoughts about it, you can approach any of the board members. And we can take note of what you're saying. So thank you. I'll pass the— I hate to pass this gavel back to you. But I'm going to.

Man, you're on a roll right now. Here you go. It's yours, Madam Chair. Thank you for the opportunity. You know I got a long memory, don't you?

No, thanks. I just wanted to note that I was not aware that this was going to come up. I, you know, my preference would have been some communication so that we could have added it to the agenda or made an announcement about it at the beginning of the committee as opposed to sort of springing it on the back end on the public. So like Mr. Wood noted, you know, we are happy to continue to take input from the public formally through the RC process, informally by conversations with members on if there is any additional thoughts related to the renewal of the task force. So lots of surprises today.

Anyways, so speaking of surprises, I am looking at sort of the time and well done, Mr. Wood, on getting us through the committee quickly. So we are a little bit ahead of agenda and I am sitting here mulling whether or not we want to move into Committee of the Whole group too. So what I would like to do is just stand down for a couple minutes, have some conversations about what that will mean and whether or not that— whether it will sort of spring surprises on stakeholders who are anticipating Committee of the Whole tomorrow. So I just kind of want to have a conversation about that, and we will come back on the record shortly, and I will let you know what the schedule for the afternoon and tomorrow will be. Thank you.

All right, welcome back on the record, 11:04. So we were just kind of sidebarring, as I mentioned, about how to structure committee and manage our agenda for the next couple of days. And here's what we're going to do. We are going to take a long lunch break today and come back on the record at 2:00 PM to do Committee of the Whole Group 2 work. And then we will break for the day.

Complete— after we complete Committee of the Whole Group 2, which is subsistence sport, personal use shellfish in Prince William Sound and Kodiak shrimp, we will break for the day. And the plan will be to deliberate Committee of the Whole Group 1 beginning tomorrow morning and take up deliberations for Committee of the Whole Group 2 tomorrow afternoon. So we're going to take a lengthy lunch break, come back at 2:00 PM to do Committee of the Whole Group 2. Are there any questions from board members? Comments?

Inputs? Okay, very good. We'll see you all back at 2. Thank you.

B, identification of salmon stock or population rebuilding goals and objectives. C, fishing management actions needed to achieve rebuilding goals and objectives in proportion to each fishery's use of and hazards posed to a salmon stock, description of new or expanding salmon fisheries management concern, yield concern, or conservation concern, and E, performance measures appropriate for monitoring and gauging effectiveness of the action plan that are derived from the principles and criteria contained in this policy. 5. Each action plan will include a research plan as necessary to provide— good, you want me to keep going? To provide— where was I?

Let's just move on. 6. Where actions needed to regulate human activities that affect salmon and salmon's habitat that are outside the authority of the department or the board, the department or board shall correspond with the relevant authority, including the governor, relevant boards and commissions, commissioners, and chairs of appropriate legislative committees, to describe the issue and recommend appropriate action.

Me?

E, nothing in the— nothing in the policy under this section is intended to expand, reduce, or be inconsistent with the regulatory authority of the board.

You guys are killing me. Are we good, Annie? No, still? You want me to be on the quiet mode still? Expanding fishery means a salmon fishery in which effective harvesting effort has recently increased significantly beyond historical levels and where the increase has not resulted in natural fluctuations in salmon abundance.

12, Expected yields means levels at or near the lower end, the lower range of recent historic harvests if they are deemed sustainable. 13, Genetic means those characteristics, genotypic, of an individual or group of salmon that are expressly expressed genetically. We good? That's what's going on.

Okay, welcome back, everybody. Hope you enjoyed the break. The time is 2:05. We are back on the record and we're about to commence Committee of the Whole Group 2. Committee of the Whole Group 2 consists of subsistence, sport, personal use shellfish, and Prince William Sound and Kodiak shrimp.

There are 22 proposals in this group, and same Same rules apply. Same committee rules apply. I will let the chairman go through how he wants to run it. But I would encourage folks that if you do think you are going to talk, please move towards the front so that we don't have to take the time to watch you walk down the aisle. All right.

Mr. Chairman, the floor is yours. Take it away, Curt. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Just a precursor for everyone. This morning when there was Committee of the Whole, some people were saying they couldn't hear the audience members speaking from the mic. So when you speak, speak directly into the mic and be loud like me.

So as the department— if you are the author of a proposal, as the department is reading off their proposal, please move up to the mic and I'll call on you to to speak otherwise, please form a line to my left, your right, of the chairs there. If I don't see anyone in line, I'll assume there's no one, uh, no one there to speak. If there's no one there at the end of when someone else is speaking, I'll assume public comments done. So, uh, with that started, let's start with Proposal 298 to the department. Oh, 263.

I'm sorry, reading from the wrong list.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and board members. For the record, my name is Andy Pollack. I am the Assistant Area Management Biologist for Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound commercial groundfish and shellfish. Proposal 263 would open a subsistence Dungeness crab fishery in the Cook Inlet area.

Outside of the Anchorage, Matsu Kenai non-subsistence use area. It would create a season from July 1st through September 30th, require a permit, establish a bag and possession limit of 5 legal-sized 6-inch or greater male Dungeness crab, and an annual limit of 40 crab. It would also establish a maximum of 1 pot or ring net per person and a maximum of 3 pots or ring nets per vessel. Thank you. Is there any public comment on this?

Mr. Chairman? Announce your name, if you will.

Oh, turn on the mic, if you will. Thomas Hagberg, Homer AC Vice Chair. I was looking to see if there was any people from Port Graham here. I hate to be the one to speak for them. And I'm not really.

I'll just tell you what the Homer AC position was. We were in support of this for that native villages that are way down on the end of the peninsula. They're not competing with anybody. They have very strict limits, as they've already read. So we were in favor of, of that position on 263, unanimous.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Hagman.

Hi again, I'm Maddie Lee. I'm the tribal fish biologist for Chugach Regional Resources Commission. I'm representing both Port Graham and Nanwalek for this proposal, and I am the proposer and support 263 passing with the amended changes that I submitted in an RC.

Go ahead, Tom. Thanks. So I guess my question is this. I see your substitute language that you talked about in RC23. Have you approached a board member to try and work on formalized substitute language?

Just so you know, want to make sure that's in the works if you are. Yeah, I've been working with Chairwoman Carlson. Okay. Thank you.

Any further questions? Seeing none. Oh, I'm sorry, Maddie, can you just state on the record a little bit what is in what you're proposing, what changes you're proposing in the RC, please? Yeah. So the changes that we would like to see based on community interviews in Nanwalek this past summer is having a season that is year-round to reflect what has been traditionally harvested in the past.

We're also looking to have the size be 6.5 inches, which would reflect regulation across the state for Dungeness crab. We'd also like to have the daily bag and possession limit be 12 male Dungeness crab, which again would reflect what just passed in Prince William Sound. And then we're going to also have a pot used to take Dungeness crab under this section that has at least 2 escape rings that each are not less than 4 3/8 inch and no more than 1 pot or ring per person with a max of 3 pots or rings per vessel may be used.

Thanks. Seeing no further questions. Thank you, Maddie.

We'll move on to the next proposal. Which is 265. Mr. Chair, Mike Booze, Lower Cook Inlet Sport Fish Area Manager out of the Homer office. Proposal 265 is seeking to establish a sport Dungeness crab fishery for the Cook Inlet/Res Bay area.

Mr. Chair, thank you. Is there any comment on this one?

Homer AC, is there a reason you skipped 264?

We're following the roadmap, uh, which is published on the site, so we will be addressing 264. There's, there's just a specific order we're moving in. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, 264, 265, Homer AC took these up kind of as a pair.

The vote totals, I don't know, 4 for, 5 against, or the other way around. Comes down on pretty much party lines. Commercial fishermen were upset because they didn't get included in this, and the other people were sport fishermen who wanted an opportunity to harvest a limited amount of Dungeness crab. I might—. While we're talking Dungeness crab, there's very few of them being harvested now.

Most of the people are fishing Tanner crab in very deep water, 350, 450. When you move up into the shallow water, 285 or so, or a little shallower, that's when you start catching Dungeness. So the guys are not bringing in very many. If you go much shallower than 250 or 220, then you get into the area where the sea otters have decimated the crab, and you'll catch very few dungeness crab in those areas. So I'll speak further on my proposal, which was 264.

Mr. Chairman, thank you. Is there any further questions on 265 or anything from the board? Seeing none, we're going to 264 now.

Mr. Chair, proposal 264 would allow the harvest of 7-inch male Dungeness crab within the Cook Inlet/Res Bay area.

Go ahead, Thomas. Thomas Hagberg again, Mr. Chairman. Again, my testimony for the advisory committee. 4-5, 5-4, Commercial fishermen opposed. They want a fishery.

This proposal would allow for the retention of a small amount of large male Dungeness crab as part of the very restrictive fishery we have currently on the Tanner crab. The 2 crab— 2 pots per boat, 3 crab per day, 20 crab in a season is the limit on Tanners. This would allow part of that 3 crab a day limit. 1, 3 Crab a day, 1 of which may be a large male Tanner crab. And 5, 20 a year, 5 of which may be a large male Dungeness crab.

And I picked 7 inches because that is really a large male Dungeness crab. They only live a certain amount of time. It's kind of like 3/4, 3 curl, full curl ram. 'Cause they've already bred and they're getting ready to die. Again, this would be part of the limit.

So on the registration form, it would say species would either be a D for a Dungeness or T for a Tanner crab. Yeah, and so there's very little being harvested now. I don't believe this would result in the harvest of very many crab, but it would give the department get some idea of what is available out there and would give people who are already crabbing the opportunity to keep a limited amount of male Dungeness crab. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Thomas.

Uh, any questions from the board? Seeing none, thank you. Seeing no other testifiers, we'll move on to 267. Mr. Chair, proposal 267 is seeking to modify the abundance thresholds for the non-commercial Tanner crab fisheries in the Cook Inlet area from a 3-year average to using the most recent abundance estimates.

Mr. Chair, thank you. Is there anyone to speak on 267?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Probably getting tired of this. Was the official position—. Can you give your name? Thomas.

Thomas Hagberg, Mr. Chairman. This is Based on the Homer Fish and Game Advisory Committee, it was a split vote. 5 For, 5 against, 1 abstention. The people who were opposed to it are opposed to the idea of doing another trawl survey in the Cook Inlet area. Otherwise, and the other 5 people that were in favor of it, again, are commercial fishermen who are hoping to get commercial season.

Based on any kind of a survey. Otherwise, the numbers, it's been fine. It was just opposed to a trawl survey. Thank you. Thank you, Thomas.

Any questions from the board? Seeing none and no other testifiers, we'll move on to 268. Mr. Chair, proposal 268 would prohibit the harvest of tanner crab from a charter vessel when guiding. Mr.

Chair. Thank you. Any comment on this one? You may as well just stay up here.

Thomas Hagberg, Mr. Chairman, Vice Chair of the Homer AC. This issue came up. We have some charter people on the board, including myself, 42 years. However, I've just retired, so— but again, this was 5-5 vote. Commercial fishermen are concerned that, you know, people on charter boat are making money off of this, so they're considered commercials.

The other people were just providing access to the people's resource. It happens to be a charter boat. This is, as my own self, 42 years of providing access. Some people don't have boats. I feel sorry for them, but I'm providing access to their resource, and I see nothing at all wrong with that.

If you remember, this summer we lost 4 people in a boating accident in Cook Inlet. Could be a treacherous place. A lot of people take charter boats, very popular industry. Because we have been safe. Yeah, you know, after 42 years, I'm still here.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Thomas. Any questions from the board? Seeing none, come on up, Joseph. Uh, Joseph Persson.

I live in Anchor Point. I have, uh, you know, I live in the area. I participate in all these fisheries out of Homer myself. Um, I participate in quite a bit of discussion about this at the Central Peninsula AC, and they representative, so I'm going to kind of briefly reference that, but this is my own opinion. We have seen very similar situations in a lot of other areas.

Prince William Sound shrimp had analogous concerns. We had some talk about this in Kachemak Bay recently, and there's, there's a lot of precedent for not allowing charter operators to participate in the pulling of pots in personal use or sport or subsistence fisheries for their clients. It's really not the way these fisheries were made for. It has some, you know, difficulties of enforcement, and it's a little bit hard to really keep good guidelines on it. And I think establishing a consistent framework that this is not acceptable is reasonable.

Thank you, Joseph. Any questions from the board? Seeing none, we'll take the next speaker.

Bruce Bowman.

I have similar concerns to Joseph. The impact of being able to fish remotely deployable gear and at the same time fish in a different place for different species, and given a charter fleet's continued operation the impact to those incidental species fished for remotely could be substantial.

Thank you, Bruce. Any questions from the board? Seeing none, we'll take the next speaker.

Josh Hayes, Kennebec Professional Guide Association. When we start to see things like this go the direction that this proposal suggests. We worry often about the access of non-boat owners and people that may want to participate in a fishery such as this that don't have direct access as a boat owner to go there. So this is something that is a concern to ours. It eliminates opportunity to an average Alaskan that may get access only for a day or two a year I don't think that's unreasonable.

Thank you, Josh. Seeing no questions from the board, no other testifiers, I will move on to 266. Mr. Chair, proposal 266 is seeking to add the use of crab snares and foldable crab nets and use a line attached to a rod to deploy crab gear to the statewide personal use crab fishery gears. Mr.

Chair, thank you. Is there anyone who'd like to speak to this one? Seeing none, we'll move to 269.

Mr. Chair, Holly Dixon, Lower Cook Inlet Sport Fish Assistant Area Management Biologist. Proposal 269 would establish a new requirement for a permit to participate in the Cook Inlet Resurrection Bay Saltwater Area Razor clam sport and personal use fisheries, which would include a reporting requirement and a failure to report penalty. Mr. Chair, thank you.

Would anyone like to speak to this one? Go ahead, Thomas. Thomas Hagberg again, Homer AC reporting. Yeah, we supported this one unanimously. We already do this for the crab fishery.

It gives the department another means of harvest recording. You know, we'd had no problem with doing this to a declining clam population. Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. Oh, go ahead, Mike.

Thomas, how do you feel about the idea of it having to go in to get the permit from ADG off— ADF&G office? Rather than just recording online? Through the chair, I assume that you're going to be able to apply for this thing online, as are all other permits in the state of Alaska, that you could have it on your phone, which would be enough to satisfy the state troopers. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Any further questions? Seeing none, go ahead, Joseph.

Joseph Persson. Again, I live in Anchor Point. I grew up, you know, on the beaches of Nenelchik my entire life. We used to, you know, participate extensively in the clam fishery for our own subsistence. And, you know, this current state of clam populations has not supported a fishery for some time.

And I support these efforts to put a better regulatory framework in place should a fishable population population reassert itself. And so I do support this proposal and don't consider it an unreasonable requirement for participation in the fishery.

Thank you, Joseph. Uh, seeing no questions from the board, no other commenters, uh, we'll move to 270. Mr. Chair, proposal 270 would shorten the season for the East Cook Inlet sport and personal use razor clam limited fisheries to a single month either within the month of July or August. It would also reduce the bag and possession limit to the first 15 razor clams taken.

Mr. Chair, thank you. Would anyone from the public like to comment on this one? All right, we're changing up the order a little. Joseph Persson.

Again, I will very briefly reference that at the Central Peninsula AC in Nenelchik, They were opposed to this. A lot of locals would, you know, basically like access to it for a longer period of time than that. My own personal opinion, I think if this fishery is able to reopen, it will have to be fairly restrictive. I fully support the 15 clam limit. The 1-month season is a little bit more, you know, problematic.

And I'm not sure it's the most elegant solution. But if that's the department's interest, I would support it and I would probably recommend July over August. Thank you. Thank you, Joseph. Seeing no questions from the board, is there anyone else that'd like to comment on this one?

Mr. Chairman, Thomas Hagberg. Yeah, Homer AC check-in here. Yeah, we supported this 11-0.

We also supported opening it in July. This fishery this last year opened up for 3 days. It was kind of a party atmosphere. The limit was 15 clams. I got 9.

I've worked that beach for 42 years. We're pretty concerned that the clam population wouldn't support the 60 clams that we've had on there for years, that 15 clams is a reasonable amount. We can skip 271, I believe, was mine. Yeah, very conservative bag limit, 15 clams. We've been fighting to reduce the limit of clams for many years.

Uh, if there's people in the valley who say, well, it's not worth going to the peninsula to harvest 15 clams, I'd do my happy dance and figure we got a victory there. But, uh, 270, yes, it was supported by me and the Homer AC. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Thomas. Any questions from the board?

Seeing none, 271 is still on the board's roadmap. So let's do that and you can come right back up.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Proposal 271 would reduce the bag limit in the East Cook Inlet sport and personal use limited razor clam fisheries for from 30 to 15. Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, Tom. Thomas Hagberg. Mr. Chairman, Homer AC supported this one 11 to nothing.

My own personal testimony would be that we have for several years fought with the department to lower the limit of these clams from 30 to 60. The department continued to say there were plenty of clams for a 60 clam limit until there were no clams. Now we've got an opportunity to have a limited fishery with a 15 clam limit. I would also tell the board that look at Oregon. Their razor clam limit is 6 and they have a 3-day limit.

Just personally, 15 clams is fine. I can eat 18 razor clams. The limit's 15, then I've got to have a little bit of halibut But we fully support this proposal, 271. And I would like the board to favor me and pass 271 before you pass the department's proposal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Tom. Thomas, Mike, what does your happy dance look like? Yay! The valley's not here!

All right, so let's, let's move on to 299. I'm sure nobody has anything to say about that one.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. My name is Martin Schuster, and I'm the area management biologist for Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet groundfish and shellfish. Proposal 299 would direct the department to develop a comprehensive Prince William Sound pot shrimp management plan and shrimp task force. Mr.

Chair, thank you. Is there anyone who wants to comment on 299? Uh, please form a line to the left if you do. I'm sorry. Oh, come on up, Bruce.

I'm Bruce Bowman. I proposed this. It has gone through a few RC revisions. I hope you've had an opportunity to look at the most recent one. I want to thank the board for addressing some of the major elements that were meant to be addressed by 299.

In this session. We have worked with the department to conceptually support a roundtable to discuss and develop future actions, which means, I guess, that a task force is no longer a part of 299. We found a way to deal with that. 303 Is addressing major concerns of the former proposition with regard to access, the TAH, and those other issues. So if I just walk you through the, the most current goals and objectives of 299 under the latest RC 51, we would like to ensure that the harvest is not exceeded in order to protect maximum sustained yield.

The primary goal is a sustainable fishery.

We would like to preserve allocation equity and ensure equitable access, protection of subsistence at low resource abundances. And specifically speaking to those points, we are still concerned about the non-commercial ability to remain within their GHL.

We would like to reduce overfishing. One of the key things I think that is in historical analysis of, you know, harvest is a conversion factor that we've corrected for in our data that we've brought forward to you.

We wanted to point out the effects of open access permit style and the erosion of the allocation to the commercial sector.

We referred you to CFEC findings during the limited entry review, and some of those are very interesting. In particular, a crossover effect was identified and quantified. So there are participants that would normally be sports fishermen with a sports permit who have been identified as moving to the commercial sectors, allowing them to use more gear.

We figure that that's 5 to 8 8% shift. So when you look at the 60/40 allocative status, in effect with crossover, it's actually 35/65 or 32/68. So this is effectively an allocation grab due to permit status.

We also remain concerned about the protection of subsistence and the potential to relate that to a percent of biomass and have provided a kind of framework for that. Currently, the language through RC is a B40 level where all sectors would close below that level. They would be open above that level. We would like to suggest a level of B30, and between B40 and B30 is approximately 15,000 pounds converted percentage of capacity. B-30, which is in alignment with 9,000 to 15,000 pounds ANS, currently in the subsistence regulations.

And then below B-30, no more fishing, which would create a 15,000-pound buffer zone before reaching B-20, which is the critical stopping point.

I think that's what I have. Mr. Carpenter. Thanks. That's a whole lot to absorb in short order, quite frankly. And I'm reading it right now because it just got posted recently.

This is what I'm trying to figure out. There's a lot in here that you didn't have in your proposal. And when I look at what you have here, this is not regulatory language. And you've also said that you've talked with the department about sitting down and discussing how to look at this management plan, et cetera, et cetera, over the next couple years. And you, you make a lot of, you know, interesting points in this state, in this RC.

But I guess what I'm trying to figure out, what do you What do you want the board to do with this the way it's written? What are you asking for? Okay. Through the chair, Mr. Karboner, I would like the board to take these considerations most likely on triggers, probably into 303.

I would like the board to recognize that shift from sport to commercial and understand that allocation is changing within that shift. [Speaker:DR. BOLL] So let me ask you one follow-up question if I can, Mr. Chairman. Where do you come up with that assumption at? How do you assume between 5 and 8% percent of the sport people are also participating in the commercial fishery.

I'm just curious where you got that information. That is in a document called Limiting Entry into Prince William Sound Shrimp Pot Fisheries, produced by Reed Johnson of CFEC, and he states that— that is in the reference of the appendix. His numbers are a little bit different. He has a range of 10% for the total non-commercial, non-delivered shrimp in the fleet over time. Generally, it's broken down in the whole document by year, but averages out about 10%, but then qualifies almost 2% range for commercial operators that never report a commercial landing, which clearly identifies somebody fishing for sport use within the commercial construct.

So we, we've done a lot of looking at this through the limited entry process, and we've kind of settled in the middle of that, 5 to 8%. We've, we've seen other numbers, but I'm trying to I can refer you to a CFEC-produced document that puts that in that range. Okay, well, I appreciate you alerting me to that. I will have to look at that. But you are also making a lot of assumptions based on numbers that they produced, and you are assuming a lot from that.

So I am just trying to think about what your original proposal said, and you are asking asking for a whole lot here before you have these discussions with the department specifically that you referred to. And so I guess I'll have to take that into consideration. Thank you.

Any further questions? Seeing none, thank you, Bruce. Uh, we'll take the next testifier. Uh, form a line, guys. If I don't see anyone standing, I'll assume no one's— no one's in line.

Uh, Joseph Burson. I think that the important aspects of creating a Prince William Sound shrimp pot management plan will be dealt with through the amended language submitted in RC for 301 and 303. I have some comments and clarity on other aspects discussed in this. I personally do not consider this so-called crossover fishing from the recreational fishery into the commercial fishery to be a downside. That's what makes this fishery special.

The fact that somebody can decide, I want to try commercial fishing, register for the fishery, take their family out with 20 pots and be a commercial fisherman is not something that there's very much opportunity for in this state. It's, it's really good public relations for the industry, and it's very just unique and special, and it's something that people can do. The numbers about, you know, the 5 to 8%, the 10% the CFEC report, those refer to numbers, basically amount of shrimp that was reported on fish tickets as retained for personal use. Retaining, you know, catch for personal use in commercial fisheries happens in every fishery. It's standard and isn't any sort of fundamental problem in my mind.

After the commercial fishery closes every year and my boat is deregistered, I participate in the non-commercial fishery to catch my own shrimp for the winter. Does that make me a crossover fisherman into the non-commercial fishery? I guess, but I don't really think it's a problem. They're two distinct fisheries, and I like the way the fishery is right now. And it's honestly like a positive thing, not a negative thing, in my opinion.

I think the management plan can be addressed through proposals elsewhere in this thing. And this sort of sweeping generalizations and like grand scheme is a lot to ask for right now when we're already switching to an entirely new methodology for setting the TAH. And there's, there's quite a bit on the table already. Thank you, Mr. Bookwood. Yeah, thanks, Joseph.

I mean, this proposal 299 is asking for a whole new firm management plan when a commercial fishing shrimp management plan which we don't have. But it—. I mean, given the fact that we're kind of a work in progress as we speak with this whole thing, do you feel that there's a backbone in place right now to have a good start in the next 3 years for a management plan?

Through the chair, yes. You know, honestly, I don't really even agree with the take that there isn't currently a management plan. Yeah, the shrimp management plan is fairly brief compared to some more complicated ones that happen in salmon fisheries or other larger fisheries, but it's a small fishery. A, you know, basically guidelines for when fishing should occur and a threshold for fishing, pot limits, season dates, how to allocate the quota. These things make up a management plan and they are sufficient for the management of this fishery.

They do need updated to the new model because none of the numbers are relevant anymore because we are evaluating everything differently. But most of the aspects we need for a management plan are currently in existence and they just need updated. Great. Thanks for adding that to the record.

Thank you. Seeing no further questions, we will move to the next speaker. Thank you, Joseph.

Uh, good afternoon. Reed Johnson with the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission. So when we compile statistics on the economics of a fishery, we split harvests into commercial and non-commercial. We did publish some statistics about non-commercial harvest, which is what we define as harvest that takes place under a commercial permit, not a harvest that takes under— under a sport fish permit. Um, so personal use.

It also includes things like discards or donations to food banks. Um, so when we looked at the fishery, we saw that a little under 2% of the total harvest, uh, was posted by people who had non-commercial harvests but who never had made a commercial harvest, so never made a delivery. We don't at all compile any statistics about sport fish harvests. So, thank you. Thank you.

Seeing no questions, thank you, Reed. We will take the next speaker, please.

Thank you. Gordon Scott for the Woodier Advisory Committee. And specifically to answer Mr. Carpenter's question to Bruce about what is this asking for, the proposal 299. Woodier AC was co-author with Valdez AC of this proposal. And we had our meeting to decide positions on the shrimp proposals.

There's a lot of discussion about this, exactly what does 299 want. 299 Does ask for a lot. Some of it's general, some of it's specific. There's—. In these amendments, it's getting a little bit more specific.

But we had a problem Because, and we voted on that 299 to support it initially. Then we get to the next proposals. Well, they're all really encompassed in proposal 299. 299 Encompasses all the other proposals, ideas, positions on them, and beyond. And so I just wanted to clarify that.

299 Was kind of meant to be specific and general. The specific part is there is no official shrimp management plan in Prince William Sound at this point. It was repealed in 2009 to make place for the current set of regulations. So I just hope I allay some confusion, you know, how each single proposal in that meeting, we kind of went over this question: do we need to vote on this? It's already covered in 299.

Well, what if the board doesn't, you know, rejects 299? So then we kind of pieced out each one. I just wanted a clarification on that. Thank you, Gordon. Seeing no questions from the other board members, we'll move to the next speaker.

Thank you again.

Thank you. Brett Wilbanks, also Valdez, Prince William Sound Advisory Committee. So what's interesting is that a lot of the things that were asked for in Proposal 299 are being addressed in various ways. And one thing to note is that the non-responsive MSY model has just been introduced as new here just at this cycle. So we didn't have any indication that that was coming necessarily, and it wasn't formally released.

But now we're seeing a new way to look at what these access issues were all about. And that had to do with the cutoff at that non-biological 110,000 pounds. And those are being addressed. And this is a new development. The other thing that's a new development that speaks to the formation of a roundtable or a group to go over these complex interrelated issues has to do with the department and their willingness to come together in maybe an annual meeting.

We've talked about what that might look like, and so there seems to be good support and buy-in with staff, management staff, for this fishery. So that's also a new development. Now, is one of the major Manager asked was to prompt that type of relationship on a consistent basis. Let's see what's working. Let's see what's not working.

Because in the past we saw that that model wasn't responsive and wasn't working. So the other point was that, you know, this is not a limited entry argument, but the point is that if it is open access in an interim entry fishery, The CFEC's findings show that this is an increasing concern. It is a cause for concern with this crossover. And that's just a quote out of that report that was referenced. The other thing is that we also have this concept, this problem of living to the model and what can we harvest.

And the performance over the years in the fishery on the non-commercial side can be described as hit and miss, maybe more hit than miss, but there's some misses in there. And that was also noted in CFEC's report. The concerns over non-commercial shrimp harvest in excess of the non-commercial GHL appear to be warranted. And so that's— there are— that's what was prompting the main themes of Proposal 299. I don't know if there's a deliverable for the board out of 299 because we've seemed to have gotten to a point to be collaborative with the department stakeholders on a recurring basis.

And the other proposals are being— are addressing things like a biological limit, access, and that just brought up the allocation questions because of the way that the fishery is structured right now and what's actually happening with the current allocation. So thank you, Brett. Seeing no questions from the board, thank you very much. Seeing no other speakers, we'll move on to 300.

Mr. Chair, members of the board, for the record, my name is Donnie Arthur. I am the Assistant Area Management Biologist for Sport Fish in Prince William Sound. Prince— proposal 300 would divide the guideline harvest level or GHL for Prince William Sound non-commercial shrimp fishery between the 3 areas defined for the commercial shrimp fishery under 5 AAC 31.210 subparagraph A.

Thank you. Come on up, Forrest. Forrest Jenkins, CDFU. We withdrew this proposal in RC 35. Thank you.

Thank you, Forrest. Uh, we'll move on to the next one, 301.

Proposal 301 would go— yeah, sorry. Proposal 301 would create a minimum threshold of 110,000-pound total allowable harvest, or TAH, for the sport shrimp fishery in Prince William Sound to open.

Forrest Jenkins, CDFU. Uh, we support RC42 that provides a floor at 2020 where no fishing occurs and maintains a conservation buffer. For the record, whenever we are considering fisheries closures based on conservation, we believe the burden should be shared across all user groups.

Thank you, Forrest. Seeing no questions from the board members— oh, Joseph, come on up.

Berson. I support the language in RC-42 as substitute for Proposal 301. It, uh, does address a floor of biological concern at which no fishing should take place beneath. As mentioned previously, you know, it's really unlikely we'd ever hit a number this low, but if we did, really no, no harvest should be happening. It also deals with some other housekeeping issues in the regulations that the department desired.

And so in general, this is, this is, uh, work towards, you know, making and keeping our management plan workable for the Prince William Sound shrimp fishery. Thank you, Joseph. Seeing no further questions and no other testifiers, we'll move on to 302. Mr. Chair, Proposal 302 would remove the minimum total allowable harvest requirement for the Prince William Sound commercial shrimp pot fishery to open and set the TAH at a static 150,000 pounds.

Mr. Chair, thank you. Go ahead, Joseph. I withdrew support for this proposal in RC50. I submitted it at the time of submission.

We hadn't yet come up with a new way to set the TAH. Thankfully, we have come up with a good way to set the TAH, and so there's no longer any need for this proposal. Thank you, Joseph. Seeing no questions, no other speakers, we'll move on to, uh, 303. Mr.

Chair, Proposal 303 would eliminate the total allowable harvest threshold of 110,000 pounds to open a commercial fishery.

Come on up, Joseph. Again, Joseph Fersen. So at the time we were setting, you know, again, a year ago when we wrote these proposals, I was trying to kind of look into the future As we've gotten here, we now see that we do in fact need to adjust this 110,000-pound threshold. As direct quote from the department, it has no biological relevance in the new model.

The—. I fully support the replacement language submitted in RC 27 that sets a threshold at B40 or 40% of carrying capacity for which a commercial fishery should take place.

Of interest, if the board can reference RC20, which is an updated model of that COBI plot that has the relevant numbers added to it, and you can see where TAHs at B40, B20, and B50 would take place. All of them still fall along this 75% FMSY. Which is in itself, you know, a 25% reduction from what the model actually suggests as a fishing harvest. I think that this 40% of biomass number is a good, responsible place for which to take additional restrictions and reductions of harvest. And while I understand the dissatisfaction within the commercial fleet, at how we have in the past and continue to do so if this passes, borne a larger share of the burden of conservation than the recreational fishery.

I don't love it. It is what it is. This is basically maintaining the current management plan and updating it to the current model without grand philosophical changes. Thank you. Thank you, Joseph.

Seeing no questions from the board, Forrest, come on up.

Forrest Jenkins, CDFU. Support for RC-27 that provides this new threshold that is based on conservation and provides maximum opportunity to both user groups under the new model down to the B-40.

Thank you, Forrest.

Questions from the board? Seeing none, come on up, Bruce.

Thank you. Maybe this is the proper place to talk about establishing a B-30 level and ability for subsistence access between B-40 and a B-30 level.

Okay. Thank you, Bruce. Are there any questions from the board? Seeing none— oh, are you— yeah, oh, no, go ahead. Yes, if you have more to add to that, please do.

Also creating a buffer zone between that B-30 milestone and B-20 would be achieved there. And that's all I have to say.

Thank you, Bruce. Seeing no further questions, Gordon, come on up.

Gordon Scott. I really appreciate that there's been some work, a lot of work by department to create this new model and suggestions of the B-40 and B-20 levels and seems to be being accepted in general. My caution, and I did some really quick looking at numbers, is— and my intuition was the B-40 should maybe be B-30, and I really didn't grasp it until I started looking at the numbers. It really kind of takes the years, the dead years, between 2000 or 1990 and 2000, you know, where the D, B levels got down to like 17 at the lowest in 1998. But, and then it started rebounding.

Even by 2003 it was B60.

So it really supports their model. The low end was really bad. I took it back to the catches of the '80s, which I participated in, and I was looking at, for instance, 1986, working with the department, it would have been 36%, be 36% of carrying capacity, which would have aligned at that point point to 53,000 according to the department. And I think the GHL, it was static during all the '80s. This is my memory, at about 172,000.

Department can correct me if I'm wrong. But we had a catch of 286,000 that year. It was a lot of effort. Fishing was very good. And— but But that would have been a B-36.

If the B-40 is accepted, we wouldn't have fished that. And that 286,000 pounds that got caught probably would have overwhelmed the environment they live in.

And it probably helped the crash happen even faster.

I asked the department to look at these numbers just an hour ago to see, because I only had a chance to look at a couple of them. I don't know if they came up with anything that would help support that. But my feeling, basically this tells— kind of brought me back to my intuition. We should not be at B40, because everybody says— everybody was saying B40 is the same. Is what we have.

It's just we're going to allow fish, but it's all the same numbers, you know. But I think that B30 is more appropriate.

Thank you, Gordon. Seeing no further— no questions and no one— oh, go ahead, Joseph.

I want to very brief— Joseph Persson for the record. I want to very briefly address another issue. I submitted a petition 2 weeks prior to the meeting that was requesting that the board direct the department to manage this year's fishery based on actions taken at the meeting. The main reason why I submitted this petition, and it's relevant to Proposal 303 as amended, is because it is not 100% clear since the 110,000-pound threshold threshold for opening the commercial fisheries in regulation, what would happen if the board passes a newer threshold at this meeting? The regulation will not come into effect until approximately the beginning of July, which is well after our historical opening for this fishery.

And so I would like at some point this meeting, if the board chooses to change the threshold for the commercial fishery via Proposal 303 as amended or otherwise, that there would be some direction as to if it's their intention for the fishery to be managed at that level this year. Thank you, Joseph. Seeing no questions, no further commenters, we'll move to 304. Mr. Chair, proposal 304 would delay the Prince William Sound non-commercial and commercial shrimp pot fisheries by 2 weeks from April 15 to May 1st.

Mr. Chair.

Go ahead, we will take the first commenter. Yes, my name is Richard Reagan, for the record, and I was the person that collected the data for this survey and was just here to answer questions if there was any questions about the data.

Okay, are there any questions from the board? Seeing none. We will take— go ahead, Joseph.

I think there is fairly widespread support for this and it aligns with actions taken in Southeast and other places. Does it have some impacts? Sure. But I think it is a good idea. Thank you.

Brent Wilbanks, Shrimp Pros. As we initiated this, the questions have been asked, what if there would be any further opportunity to trim off the tail end of the season and if that would have bigger impact. Just want to let you know that we just haven't been fishing in that and collecting the data at the end of the season. So the facts that we had were what we collected at the beginning of the season, but maybe there would be a chance to look at that in the future. At the tail end of the season.

So just wanted to address that question. Thank you, Brett. Seeing no further questions, come on up, Gordon.

Gordon Scott. For the record, I support this proposal. I think it's also indicative of one of the biggest problems back in the '80s when we were— because the fishery opened in March 15th. And I didn't have egg or percent numbers back then, but it was extremely high for the beginning of the fishery. It's still— by May 1st, there were very few eggs.

So it's a biological thing. I think it had a really big thing happening with the crash back then in the '80s and having a lot to do with what's going on now.

Thank you, Gordon. Seeing no other questions from the board and no one— no other people speaking, we'll move on to the next proposal, 305. Mr. Chair, Donnie Arthur, Prince William Sound Assistant Area Management Biologist. Proposal 305 would prohibit participants in the Prince William Sound non-commercial shrimp fishery from carrying additional shrimp pots beyond what is permitted to be used in regulation.

Thank you. Go ahead, Forrest. Forrest Rankin, CDFU. We support alternative language in RC45 based on testimony from the public and advisory committees. In addition to further conversations with the department, we suggest allowing one pot in addition to the regulatory number of pots in regulation or emergency order per person per vessel to be carried on a vessel participating in the Prince William Sound non-commercial shrimp fishery.

We hope this regulation change will clear up enforcement concerns, eliminate the incentive to illegally deploy extra pot gear, motivate participants to deploy gear responsibly to avoid pot losses while ensuring non-commercial opportunity is maintained throughout the shrimp trip. That's it. Thank you, Forrest. Seeing no questions from other board members, come on up, Gordon. This is Gordon Scott.

I support it as it was originally put in. I've heard a lot of discussion through different mediums about allowing it. But to me, it's totally an enforcement issue. You know, I think having unlimited number of pots, which I think is how it is now, extra pots to one, it's really the same thing. It encourages, you know, the bad guy to do bad things.

And why do they need an extra pot? You know, if they're going to lose one, they're going to lose the other one too. You know, I hear the argument about if they lose a pot, they're going to have another one. If they don't have what they're doing if they lose a pot. I also kind of equate it to traffic lights.

You know, you have a green light, you go through it, that's all perfectly good. You go through a yellow light, well, that's kind of okay. But you go through a red light, you don't get a second chance.

Thank you, Gordon. Seeing no questions from the board, come on up, Brett.

Thank you, Brent Wilbanks. I just— I think that my thought on this is it's totally unenforceable, one extra or unlimited extras. And that's the only lever really that's being used to pace the non-commercial fishery, is pot limits to keep it at GHL. And again, it's been hit and miss. And I ask myself With extra pot, the ability to throw a piece of remote gear out, it is— are they reporting that catch if they're using the extra pots?

And so I think that it's more enforceable in a bag and possession limit thing. If that were a tool used to pace the non-commercial fishery, that's something that's enforceable. Just the pot themselves having a pot limit seems to be a problem for hitting the goal, and it's certainly something that leads to something that's non-enforceable and the opportunity for extra take. So those are my personal thoughts on the issue.

Thank you, Brett. Seeing no board questions, come on up.

Yeah, thank you. Julie Cavanaugh. Speaking for myself, I really didn't I didn't have any intention of speaking to this proposal, but I wanted to— first of all, I don't have a stake in this fishery and don't really understand the dynamics of it. But what I do want to talk about is from a commercial perspective, if you lose a pot and then you recover it or find it later, if you don't allow some leeway for that pot to be recovered and brought back to town, then you're putting those participants in a situation where they can't retrieve their gear. So I know that happens for us and other fisheries, and maybe that should be a consideration.

You lose a pot, you replace it with a new one, and then later in the season you might want to— you might come across that pot, it might pop up from a, um, a change in tide or, or weather conditions. So I just think that that's kind of important if this is going to be precedent-setting and create a situation in a different area. Thank you.

Thank you, Julie. Seeing no questions, coming up, Joseph.

Um, echoing the previous commenter to some extent, I have in fact utilized this ability to bring in lost pots that I recovered after the season. The commercial fishery was closed. The rules where the commercial fishery can't bring in extra pots or have extra pots on boat do make it impossible to bring lost gear back in, and that's fine and appropriate. It allows enforcing of the commercial pot limit. But I have in fact multiple times recovered gear after the season.

You know, I go back out, make a substantial effort to drag for and find lost last year, and I have brought back in 5 pots at a time after the commercial season was closed and it was legal. I don't think there's a big problem with this being abused substantially. People who are going to break the rules are going to break the rules, and it seems somewhat unnecessary, complicated, and burdensome on the non-commercial fishery. So I'm opposed to it. So yeah, so I'm opposed to it.

Thank you. Thank you, Joseph. Uh, seeing no questions, no other speakers, we'll move to 306.

Mr. Chair, Proposal 306 would require participants in the commercial shrimp pot fishery to provide daily reports by statistical area on shrimp harvest and effort. Mr. Chair, thank you. Come on up, Forrest.

Forrest Jenkins, CDFU. We support this proposal as we are always in favor of providing as much in-season data as possible to the Department Department to help sustainably manage fisheries. We also hope that all user groups eventually will be on the same page and offer in-season reporting in the best interest of our resources and livelihood, especially in years of low abundance. In-season reporting is essential to responsibly manage this fishery for both commercial and non-commercial.

Thank you, Forest. Seeing no board questions, coming up, Joseph.

There are— Joseph Persson for the record. There are already fairly extensive reporting requirements in this fishery. Um, your average participant in the non-commercial fishery is usually quite surprised by the reporting requirements in the commercial fishery. We have to keep a logbook of every single pot lift. It has to be submitted with the fish ticket, and we have to call in a pre-trip and a pre-landing report for every single fishing trip.

Well, personally, I would not find it to be substantively different if I was calling in every night. I have a satellite phone, and so even in the areas with no coverage, could do this. Some fishermen would find that to be significantly burdensome, especially Area 3 has large areas without cell coverage, and there are people who go out there without any sort of satellite communications. Calling in a pre-trip and a pre-landing is always doable because you do that as you're leaving and coming into port. Furthermore, the department has a lot of reports made in this fishery.

For how small this fishery is, the data collection burden put on the relatively small commercial department staff is relatively heavy, takes up a lot of time that time of year. Requiring daily call-ins would roughly triple the amount of call-ins that were made. Um, your average boat is making a 4-day trip, some, you know, the range is 3 to 5, but I'd say a 4-day trip is pretty average. So it would turn, you know, that one call-in into 4 call-ins. The only people who are currently reporting every day are catcher processor vessels because those call-ins need to happen since the fish tickets and processing are happening at sea.

And yeah, I don't really think this is necessary. If the Department did feel it was necessary, they could require it by EO under current regulations. I oppose the proposal. Thank you. Thank you, Joseph.

Seeing no questions from the Board, come on up, Bruce.

Bruce Bowman, for the record. I won't repeat what Joseph just said. I oppose it for the same reasons. I will just add that I have satellite capability, I have cellular boosting capability, generally have good connection around the Sound, but even with those, there are dead zones. And I, in the past, have spent a lot of time running around to trying to do reporting to the department at my expense with some difficulty.

So to increase this and narrow the margins by having trouble making the communication is unnecessary to me for sure.

Thank you, Bruce. Seeing no— nothing from the board, come on up, Mike.

Hey, good afternoon. Michael Hand, CDFU. I think this might not be the solution. Perfect solution to this, but I think looking at our regulations and our rules for fisheries, it's an opportunity to modernize them. You know, the pre-trip and the post-trip, or pre-landing call-ins, those were before we had good cell phone service, before people had satellite phones.

So this is just an opportunity. You know, most people have an inReach now. I agree it may be a burden to some, So I think the board should just in the future continue to look at how we can improve data collection, even if it's not going to be used in the moment by the department. It's important to start collecting this data. I know there's a resistance to do it in the sport fishery and the commercial fishery, but it's an opportunity to modernize and eventually we're going to have to do that.

So thank you, Mike. Seeing no questions from the board, come on up, Gordon. This is Gordon Scott. For the record, I don't see any need for additional reporting at this time. The department has said that they— there is adequate reporting.

The one thing I was thinking just back here is what happens if we end up fishing at lower levels. You know, where the stat area cap starts getting smaller numbers. And this idea has come from the department. This idea would actually help a fishery proceed if we were working there to where, say, a stat area cap is like 3,000 pounds. You know, if you end up with some something like that in the productive stat areas, it can be really short openings.

But in general, I'm opposed to it because I think the current model will keep us from fishing with those tiny, tiny numbers.

Thank you, Gordon. Seeing no, no other speakers, no questions from the board, we'll go ahead and take a 15-minute break. We'll come back on the record in 15 minutes.

Okay, so we're back on the record at 336. Let's move on to 307.

For the record, Donnie Arthur, Assistant Area Management Biologist for Sport Fish, Prince William Sound. Proposal 307 would change the season opening time for the Prince William Sound non-commercial shrimp fishery 8:00 AM on April 15th. Is there anyone that would like to speak on this one?

Go ahead, Brett.

Yeah, Brett Wilbanks, Valdez Prince Rupert Sound AC. This was AC-generated. The thought was deconflicting these two uses at the start and opening time. It might be noted that given the presentation from the department, only 35% of the non-commercial participation is in these areas of commercial rotation. And in fact, there's 3 areas of rotation, and you can almost say that this is getting down to about 10% on average, uh, potential conflict between non-commercial and commercial at the at the start time of the season.

And the only difference in the start time is that on the non-commercial side, it's open just at 12:01 a.m. on the opening date, and the commercial starts at 8 a.m. So there's a slight bit of conflict in that opening time frame when you can look across the water and if you see a few buoys out there before 8 a.m., you don't know what's going on. If that's it, so it leads to an enforcement, sort of an enforcement issue.

Thank you, Brett. Seeing no questions, come on up, Forrest. Forrest Jenkins, CDFU. We support this and we see it as a housekeeping issue. We don't support any fisheries starting at midnight for safety concerns.

Thank you, Forrest. Seeing no questions, Joseph.

Joseph Persson, for the record. There's, to my knowledge, very, very low precedent in sport and non-commercial fisheries for dictating an opening time. I actually think that this, if anything, reduces gear conflict between user groups. I have, uh, fished around non- commercial fishermen many times on opening day, although it usually happens in Area 1. And believe me, like, I would prefer if when I went to set my gear at 8 AM, they already had their gear in the water.

I can work around it. I'm much better and more experienced at setting gear than your average non-commercial fisherman and much less likely to set on top of them. If we were all trying to set at 8 o'clock, I actually think it would make it worse. So I don't think this is necessary and I oppose it. Thank you, Joseph.

Seeing no questions, no further commenters, we'll move to 308. Mr. Chair, my name is Martin Schuster. I am the area management biologist for Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet for groundfish and shellfish. Proposal 308 would reduce the maximum pot limit in Prince William Sound shrimp pot— in the commercial Prince William Sound shrimp pot fishery from 100 pots to 25 pots, Mr.

Chair. Thank you. Uh, go ahead, Joseph. Joseph Persson, this is my proposal. So there's two aspects at work here.

One, the, uh, the current regulatory maximum pot limit of 100 pots is completely inappropriate for this fishery, which is why it's never been utilized. Um, there's It's never been used. It never should be used. So I don't see any reason to put it on the record or keep it on regulation. We could change it.

As to why I picked 25 originally, again, this was a year ago. We were unsure of a lot of things. In particular, I had put in that proposal for a fixed GHL, and there was concern that sometimes that might be overharvesting. And so I put in this very restrictive pot limit for the commercial fishery because fishing at small pot limits like 25 pots has very, very strong conservation effects within the commercial fishery. To put it as succinctly as possible, with very few pots, you need to fish on very good shrimp populations for it to be economically viable.

You can't grind away on poor or weak stocks because you don't have enough pots to make it worthwhile. That said, we have come up with a better way to set the TAH, so it's not as important to have other conservation tools in place. And with the continuation of the 3-area rotation, 25 pots would be pretty restrictive in Area 3. As a result, I did submit RC50, includes a proposal to amend this from 25 to 50. I feel pretty strongly 25 pots is enough for Area 1 and Area 2, 2, but again, 50 might be appropriate in Area 3, although we fished it with 35 last year, just for, you know, reference.

I do strongly feel 100 is— there's no circumstance. It would be a disaster. It would be ecologically impactful. It would cause gear conflict. It's just way too many pots for this fishery.

Thank you, Joseph. Seeing no board questions, I'll take the next speaker.

For the record, Brett Wilbanks. I just wanted to note that in 2015, the commercial fleet was allowed 60 pots. We were able to obtain 34.5% of GHL in that year. If we move to a 25-pot hard limit, there are going to be some years where it's difficult to attain the GHL. I think this removes options from the department to allow the commercial fleet to catch the sustainable harvestable amount.

Thank you, Brett. Seeing no questions, come on up, Forrest.

Forrest Jenkins, CDFU. We oppose this. We shouldn't be taking away tools from the department. The department already has Commissioner has the authority to set pot limits at low levels if feel necessary. In years of different abundances or efforts, we may need this adaptive tool to keep up with harvest goals efficiently.

Thank you, Forest. Seeing no questions, come on up, Michael.

Hi, Michael, CDFU. Michael Hand. I think when we're setting rules for this fishery or regulations in It's important to remember that it's an open access fishery. Anybody can go get a card. There'll be—.

This is not limited at this time to a certain amount of permits. So that's why this regulation is in place there. Who knows? There could become a time when it's less commercially viable to go harvest these shrimp and maybe only 10 people register. That's why there's a pot limit there.

We're just leaving the tool in the hands of ADF&G, obviously. At the current levels, his management is going to continue to use 25 to 35 or 40 pots. Like, that's, that's what it is. But we're just leaving the option open. And because it's an open access fishery, we don't know how many people will register in the future.

Thank you, Mike. Seeing no questions coming up, Grant.

Gordon Scott. Gordon Scott, for the record. No problem. Back in 2009, back to the history lesson, when we had that meeting, this number was discussed, what was going to be in regulation as a maximum.

I pressed for the 100 hard. I used to fish with a lot more pots than that. I wanted more, but it's a different time. But even then, the department said— and we'd already just worked out a lot of these management things where the department already had the tools to change the number of pots each year. And we've never fished with 100 pots since then.

I think the department has the appropriate tools to set the right amount. And the last speaker mentioned there might be a time when not many people register, in which case you know, going up to the upper limit might possibly happen.

Thank you, Gordon. Seeing no questions, no further speakers, we'll move on to 309. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board. My name is Nat Nichols.

I'm the area manager for commercial shellfish and groundfish fisheries in Kodiak, Chignik, and South Alaska Peninsula areas. Proposal 309 would change season dates for registration area J commercial shrimp fisheries from June 1 through February 28 to April 1 through December 31. Mr. Chair, thank you. Are there any speakers to this?

Seeing none, we'll move to 310. Mr. Chair, proposal 310 would remove the triennial area rotation in the Prince William Sound commercial shrimp pot fishery and instead open all areas annually. With separate guideline harvest levels. Mr.

Chair, thank you. Go ahead, Forrest. Forrest Jenkins, CDFU. To reiterate, when these proposals were written, the department did not have a solution established for this fishery. We have been encouraged over the last couple of months with the department's collaborative efforts to come up with a more sustainable way of managing the shrimp fishery in support of potential regulation changes that will add further buffers in this fishery.

In addition to the new model from ADF&G, we hope the department continues to better this model and continues working with stakeholders. We hope the department can source more funding to gain more information through pot surveys and continue to incorporate as much data as possible into the model to get the most accurate interpretation of shrimp populations in the Prince William Sound.

Thank you, Forrest. Seeing no questions, coming up, Joseph.

Joseph Persson. So the 3-area rotation has been in place since the fishery opened in 2010. So we have seen every area 5 times. 3 Of the 5 times, the commercial fleet failed to catch its GHL in Area 3, and that is basically the underwriting reason for the general interest in going away from the 3-area rotation. I'm not fundamentally opposed to it in principle.

In practice, going immediately to fishing the entire Sound at current levels would require in targeted numbers that are very, very small and difficult to manage to, you know, as an example, this year with the small GHL, we'd be trying to target to approximately a 6,000-pound limit for any given stat area. Realistically, this would require a 1-day opener if the normal amount of participation happened, because you have to assume they might all go to the best stat area since it's pretty well established. This, this just seems unmanageable. So, like, I haven't heard a practical solution to this. I also firmly believe that some amount of commercial pressure needs to happen out of Area 3.

Nobody likes fishing there, myself included. However, almost no non-commercial effort happens in Area 3, and there's no practical way to encourage or force non-commercial effort in Area 3 right now. Because of that, Area 3 produces less than 15% of the overall harvest, and it is actually the largest of the 3 areas. I do not believe it is being overfished. It is less productive, but it is so large that it would have to be, you know, less than 20% of the productivity of the other areas in order for it to be being overfished right now, and I do not think that's true.

I am concerned that any move away from the 3-area rotation that moved that 15% of the harvest from Area 3 up into Area 1 and Area 2 would not necessarily be beneficial to the population as whole. Furthermore, there is some evidence to support that 3-area rotation does help maintain a larger average size in the shrimp fishery. It probably doesn't optimally spread harvest around from a biological standpoint, but by giving this 2-year— 2 years of rest from the commercial fishery, it clearly allows shrimp time to get bigger in between the times that we harvest them. This has both biological and market benefits. So I don't think it's inherently a bad idea.

Maybe in the future we will be able to come up with a system that doesn't leave us where the commercial fleet isn't always able to harvest its GHL. But this seems to be at the moment what we're stuck with. So I am opposed to this. Thank you. Thank you, Joseph.

Seeing no questions, no further speakers. We'll move to 311.

Mr. Chair, proposal 311 would allow vessels registered to commercially fish in the Prince William Sound shrimp pot fishery to also operate as tenders. Mr. Chair, thank you. Come on up, Forrest.

Forrest Jenkins, CDFU. Uh, the intent was to increase economic viability and efficiency in this fishery. In addition, it would make for a safer fishery by reducing the number of vessels running to port to deliver every, every 2 to 3 days.

Thank you, Forrest. Any questions? Seeing none, come on up, Bruce. Thank you, Bruce Bowman, for the record.

[Speaker:CHUCK] If you had gotten my opinion on this 5 years ago, I would have been all behind it.

As an independent evaluation of my fishing, the ability to tender as well as fish would have been a great advantage. But as I explored the idea further and further, I saw complications with it. There are point-of-sale complications, the size of boat complications, because every boat has to carry its own gear and its ice and its pots. And this would allow that kind of thing to become less transparent.

And [Speaker:MICHAEL] I think if it were allowed, just one single operation that was tendering and fishing would have an influence generally in the fleet that would encourage everybody to start basically forming cooperative relationships. Because that would satisfy a lot of the difficulty we have as independent operators at this time.

Thank you. Seeing no further questions, coming up, Joseph.

Joseph Person for the record. We have had some version of this proposal multiple times over the years in these cycles.

It is most simply speaking, a way to get around what are seen as small pot limits. Um, the most classic, easiest example— and this is not to point fingers at any specific user group— would be a saner then being able to fish two pot limits because of their sane skiff fishing the other one and the mother boat tendering for both.

I don't necessarily think this is fundamentally a problem. However, it absolutely would increase effort in the fishery and pots in the water. That doesn't seem appropriate at the current time. Furthermore, small vessels who want to fish as a cooperative have done this successfully in the past. There's nothing in the current regulations prohibiting it.

For many years, we had a whole group of fishermen that fished out of skiffs and all delivered to a single gillnetter as a tender and did this all within the current regulatory framework. I'm opposed to this proposal and think it's completely unnecessary in this fishery and frankly, most other fisheries where it's recommended. Thank you. Thank you, Joseph. Seeing no other testifiers, no questions from the board, I think that concludes Committee of the Whole Group 2.

And I turn the chair back over to Ms. Carlson-Vandort. Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain. Appreciate it. Well done. Getting us through those proposals.

So I think what we will do is break for the day. However, I do want to just make sure that department staff and board members check in with each other. If you want to work on any substitute language, I would ask department staff not to split right away, please, so that we can— they can have some conversations and make sure that there isn't anything that needs drafting. So Board members, if you are working on substitute language, please notify a staff member. And, and if you're working with the stakeholder— if you are working with a stakeholder, please make sure you're communicating with them about your substitute language schedule.

I would also ask that you have RCs, if there is substitute language, to be considered prior to deliberations tomorrow, please have your RCs into board support staff by 8:00 AM so that they have adequate time to distribute, get them uploaded for the public, and give, give other members time to read prior to beginning deliberations. Are there any questions on that right now? Okay. And then certainly this goes for— you have a little bit of latitude in terms of getting substitute language and for Committee of the Whole Group 2. It is my intention to do Committee of the Whole Group 2 after lunch tomorrow, but we will kind of play it by ear depending upon how long deliberations take on Group 1.

All right. What time to start? Tomorrow morning, let's begin at 8:30 a.m. We'll see you tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. Thank you.