2026 Bristol Bay Finfish Meeting (1/15/2026)

All right, welcome back everybody. Today is January 15th, time is 8:42 AM. We are still in public testimony and, uh, just a reminder for folks that If you haven't been here the last couple of days, 3 minutes individually. AC representatives and RAC representatives will each get 10 minutes. And again, when the buzzer goes off, please wrap it up, stop talking.

I don't like interrupting folks, but I will have to do it just to keep it moving. The other thing that I would ask is I'm going to call a few names in a row. So if you're in that little group of names called, that means that you're coming up quick, and I'd really appreciate it if you queued toward the front to just keep things moving expeditiously and cut down on the time that we are waiting for you to walk down the aisles. Okay. So our first person today— any announcements, Mr. Nelson?

Anything else before we get going? All right. Dan Dunaway. Is Dan in the room? Hi, Dan.

After Dan, we will hear from Dan Breeden and Robert Hayano and Fritz Johnson. Welcome. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for the opportunity to talk.

I'm Dan Dunaway, lifelong Alaskan, 36-year resident of Dillingham. I retired from the Department of Fish and Game as the area sport fish biologist for Bristol Bay area. Currently I serve on the Nushagak AC and the Bristol Bay— I'm the vice chair of the vice— of Bristol Bay RAC. But I'm speaking strictly for myself today.

So first off, I want to say that I support the actions of Anushagak AC. I was part of it, I voted for it, I want to stand for that, including our request to postpone any action changing the Anushagak King Management Plan. Like a previous testifier yesterday said, said some of us been in that since the very beginning. It's been a really hard process but worked out, and I hate to see it changed right now. If I had greater confidence in the sonar counts, I would probably be recommending some more changes, but right now I think it'd be best to let it run and see how it goes.

If we have some smaller runs, less shadowing, see what happens.

Number 2, I oppose all the proposals that advocate for barbless hooks. That's kind of a feel-good regulation that generally just doesn't work. There's a meta-analysis done quite some time ago where they lost more public support and rapport with the public than they gained in any sort of biological advantage.

Number 3, I oppose any proposal for general commercial districts wide, non-boundaries. I don't, of course I'm a biologist, I wholeheartedly support the terminal stock management and it just doesn't make any sense to me to do that. So, also partly because of that, You know, they say, well, later in the season. Well, we have some serious concerns about coho as well, and I wonder, you could have some inadvertent effects. We had a marathon 12-hour RAC meeting Monday where we had several very impassioned public testimony about the problems with cohos in our area.

My experience recently has been that a lot of the coho are quite small. The rearing conditions out in the ocean must be poor, but we sure don't need people wandering around, say, from late July into August, possibly intercepting the coho we have.

Number 4, I support the proposal number 80 regarding a joint venture with Setnets. It's kind of a unique and interesting issue, and I didn't go into the meeting supporting it, but listening to the advocates and trying to sort out the potential, if there's any potential harm in it. It just seems like it's worth trying. I kind of hate to burden fishermen with any unnecessary bureaucracy. And so I think it's worth a try.

And another kind of general comment that early on in your meeting, you were concerned about. Just funding with Fish and Game, and I think Fish and Game hasn't had the priority of some of the recent governors that previous governors had. We still need the financial support and close attention. Thank you. Thanks, Dan.

Questions? Okay, I'm gonna— I got one for ya. Not listening to my own advice. But my question is, you know, you talked about that we don't trust the enumeration and we think that there's you know, a lot of play in there probably.

How does— so, you know, we're still hitting 20,000 kings under the SEG lower bound, right? Roughly, give or take, last year. And maybe you'll see that play in better enumeration or you get a lot closer to the lower end of the SEG. But what about the in-river goal of 95,000? Like we're significantly below that.

Yes, we certainly are. And, uh, I— one of my years of managing the fishery, I had to make out— well, all the data said close, close the sport fishery, and I did, which was brutal. You know, plane tickets canceled, deposits were already spent, uh, and the lodges had to refund, uh, their money. They started breaking their camps down, and that The data said I had a 1% chance of making an escapement. 36 Hours later, we made the escapement.

And did I ever look terrible. That was brutal.

A lot of these numbers I just struggle with. We've had— some of these numbers seem to be based on some of the previous sonar designs. There was a time when the sonar seemed to work better. We didn't have these monster, monster red runs. Um, it's— in fact, I feel terrible to say that we don't have confidence, but my confidence is shaken, and I feel for the guys trying to use it now.

Um, I don't know if it's unrealistically high or just what to make of it. So do you think that there's a 60,000 Delta that is being missed, 60,000 King that are being missed on an annual basis with sonar? No, definitely not. If we had 60,000 more up there, it would be unmistakable. I seem to remember a couple years where, yeah, we started talking about there weren't any kings, and some of the lodges say, what do you mean?

We're getting a lot of fish up here. It's— I'm just kind of baffled at how things are going right now, and I just— it's frustrating that with so much uncertainty. Okay, thank you for your testimony today. Next up is Dan Dunaway. Mr. Swenson, one question please.

I know I keep hearing that the sonar— and I agree— but you still have 40 years of using that sonar, so you still have a pretty, pretty good idea of whether the run is bad, average, or good. Just by the 40 years of data that you have. Isn't that true? There have been several changes in the actual equipment used, and I've never been much of a sonar guy, so I don't want to be beating up on the sonar guys, but there was a Bendix system that ran for quite a while and into my career there. I was assistant biologist from 1990 to 1998 when I moved up, but And ironically, some ways it seems like it was more reliable.

But it was getting old and the people that could service it were retired or even passed away. They moved to various split beam and side scan sonars. I can't even keep track. There was DIDSON and I can't remember the name of the one they're using now. There might have been 2 or 3 different iterations of equipment.

Also, the bottom contour in the immediate area, the sonar just upstream has changed considerably. 2 Years, 3 years ago when I went moose hunting, I actually hit bottom where it used to be deep enough, just like 100 yards upstream of the sonar unit. And I can't help but wonder the, with that bar building, if it changes water flow and changes how the fish swim. In that area. Okay, well, thank you.

Mr. Wood, thank you for bringing up the contour of the river. I appreciate it. Duke, I'll talk to you later. Okay, we're going to focus on questions, members, please, to keep it moving today. All right, thank you.

Dan Breeden.

Welcome. If you'll just press the button and there we go. Now I can hear you on the record now. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Dan Breeden.

I'm the president and CEO of Bristol Bay Native Association. And please reference RC33 regarding this testimony. Bristol Bay Native Association is a federally recognized tribal consortium governed directly by the 31 sovereign tribes of Bristol Bay. BBNA exists to carry out the collective will of its members. We operate as an extension of tribal governments, strengthening sovereignty, self-determination by delivering programs and support, cultural continuity economic stability, and social well-being, ensuring that tribal voices drive our decisions and services.

Bibbena supports the current Nushka King Salmon Stock Concern Management Plan and opposes proposals 61 and 62. It's too early to abandon that plan. Bibbena supports the maintaining the 32-foot vessel length and opposes all proposals 82 through 91.

The fleet has operated under 32-foot limits since 1949, and it's kept this fishery stable and accessible. There's no reason to change it. If the rule is 32 feet, enforce 32 feet. Third, BBNA opposes permit stacking and proposals 75 through 78. It goes against the intended limited entry and it increases consolidation, favors larger vessels, reduces access for young and rural fishermen.

And when local people have access to commercial fishing, their ability to maintain subsistence, the way of life, is also better.

Weakened enforcement leads to pressure to rewrite rules to match the violations. This is backwards. The solution is strong, stronger enforcement, not weaker rules. Fourth, BBNA opposes Proposal 188, increasing the Togiak herring allocation to Dutch Harbor food and bait fisheries. There's a temporary inactivity in the market, and shifting that value away from Bristol Bay is just wrong.

Fifth, Bristol Bay opposes Proposal 44. On King Salmon home pack limits, you would impose numeric caps, reporting requirements without clear conservation benefit, burdening those who already are harvesting responsibly. Bristol Bay depends on the balance of subsistence, the commercial economy, and conservation. These all rise and fall together. BB&A urges the board to reject proposals that break the balance and support management systems that protect all three.

Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for your testimony, sir. I don't see any questions at this time. Appreciate you being here and thank you for submitting our C-33.

Robert Hayano.

Robert Hayano followed by Fritz Johnson, John Levin, and Travis Wren. Good morning, Robert. Welcome.

Good morning, Madam Chair, board members. For the record, my name is Robert Aiano. I'm a lifelong resident of the Nushigak Bay area. I started my commercial fishing with my mom on a set— family set nets at Ekuk Beach. I'm currently an owner-operator of Bristol Bay Drift Gillnet Operation.

I'm opposed to any changes to the Nushigak District King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan. I reviewed the performance assessment of the 2023 plan prepared by the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute. It's my opinion the plan has performed to the expectations of the task force group. I believe it to be a mistake to make any changes with only a 3-year time period to the plan developed on consensus with all the task force user groups. Please see PC32 NRc 5 and 18.

I'm opposed to eliminating the 32-foot vessel limit for Bristol Bay drift boats. Removing the 32-foot limit will only further disadvantage the watershed resident, resident drift fishermen. Studies have shown that they currently have the smaller vessels and the lower horsepower motors. Removing the 32-foot limit will reduce the value of mine and many other fishermen who currently have a legal 32-foot vessel. Please see, please see RC 7 and 8.

I'm opposed to changing the current dual permit regulation. Once again, the watershed resident will not be the group of fishermen to financially receive the benefits of one owner, two permits, and an additional 50 fathoms of gear. Currently, the watershed residents with the existing regulation and through BBEDC's loan program has a real opportunity to own a Bristol Bay permit and receive compensation as for being a crew member and a permit owner.

I do support Proposal 56. I'm opposed to 57 as written, but I do support the Nishnabeg AC's amended language. I'd like to use my remaining time to share an observation of mine with you. In Bristol Bay, we have regulations that are not being enforced or to the degree of satisfaction we expect. We submit other proposals in a large part that seek to provide additional regulations for the same problem.

My other observation is when illegal fishing activity reaches the level of public awareness The solution is to make the illegal activity legal through regulatory changes. My conclusion is the problem is not the regulation, but that AWT lacks the resources to adequately enforce the Bristol Bay fishery regulations. It is my hope that Bristol Bay organizations can get together with AWT to address this problem. In— I'd like to borrow a closing comment from an elderly Bristol Bay lady for my closing comment. For those of you who say crime doesn't pay, has never fished in Bristol Bay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Robert. Questions? T-shirt says that. Right? Yeah, I think there's a marketing opportunity there.

Thank you for your testimony today. Fritz Johnson.

Hi, Fritz. Good to see you. Welcome back.

Madam Chairman and board members, thanks for your time today. For the record, my name is Fritz Johnson. I have lived in Dillingham since 1979. I am the ancestor the ancestral land of the Chugayung people, and I haven't missed a salmon season in 46 years. I've also sat where y'all are, you know, for a couple of terms, so I have a genuine appreciation for the work you guys do.

I strongly oppose any changes to the Nushagak King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan, in particular proposals 44 and 61 through 68, for reasons that have already been spoken about but are important enough to merit a quick review. The management plan kickstarted by this board in 2018 was the work of sport, commercial, and subsistence stakeholders led by veteran fisheries scientists who spent decades in the service of ADF&G. Developing the plan took 5 years and was adopted in 2023. No one involved believed the plan would rebuild king stocks overnight. Kings, as you know, spend 4 to 7 years at sea.

And the authors of Proposals 61 through 68 and 44 would change the management plan before it's even barely begun. These proposals ignore the plan's intent. It was a well-crafted compromise among the user groups to provide protection for kings and fishing opportunity for stakeholders. The proposals are in fact a remarkably blatant attempt to increase the fortunes of one user group at the expense of another. And this by a user group that doesn't have a great history of king conservation in its home waters.

Yes, I'm talking about the Kenai, and those who've been on the board for a while know that volatile history.

To be clear, I'm not blaming the sport fishing industry for the demise of kings. Their decline is widespread throughout the state. And despite a tendency to want to point fingers, it's reasonable to believe that there are multiple factors, from a pathogen triggered by climate climate change in the Yukon to— I'll ignore what I wrote here about fishing on spawning beds— interception by industrial fisheries in the Bristol Bay and the Bering Sea trawl fleet. And there's another factor that rarely gets any attention. I never saw an orca, killer whales, in the Nushagak until about 20 years ago.

Since then, sightings have become relatively common and evidence of their predation on kings seems to be playing out in textbook fashion according to research by Dr. Dan Schindler of the University of Washington. I've attached two citations on marine mammal predation to my testimony that I've submitted as RC64, and I have anecdotes to share too if the board is interested. Whatever the factors, the scarcity of king salmon is a statewide problem, one that's prompted one biologist to describe the plan now in effect as an effort to save kings that may not be there. Hopefully that's not the case. But for now, the existing management plan is the best collectively agreed upon strategy we have, and we need to give it time to play out.

You've heard virtually unanimous testimony from watershed residents and others too— I've got like 2 more sentences— supporting the existing Nushagak King Salmon Plan. Equally important to the region's small rural communities where year-round jobs are few is access to Bristol Bay's commercial sockeye fishery. Which here is a matter of economic survival, not a luxury entertainment. I urge you to reject both proposals 44 and 61 through 68. Thank you.

Thanks, Fritz. Appreciate your being here today. Questions? Thank you for your testimony. John Levin, followed by Travis Wren, Jordan Head, and Mariano Floresta.

Welcome, John. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, for this opportunity to speak. My name is John Levan, and I'm a 28-year-old lifelong Alaska resident that has been fishing Bristol Bay since 2015, and I've been running my own operation, Drift Gillnetting, for 3 years. I oppose Proposals 44 and 61 through 68, or making any changes to the King Salmon Stock of Concern management management plan already in place.

Please give the management plan a chance to work. It is based on science and it's doing its job. We just have to be patient. And one thing I'd like the board to consider is if they enacted a hard start date of June 28th in the Nushagak District, where would those 400 to 600 boats fish the early season? I've fished Igigiq my first 3 years and I've been able to make a living with a small boat and a single permit.

If half those boats decided to fish Igigiq, it would not only make it harder to make a living in the Nushugak, but also in Igigiq, Yugashik, and the Naknek Kwijak, as well as it would be harder for management. For a financial example, by June 28th last season, I had over 20,000 pounds landed, and there were around 200 boats or less registered to Igigiq. So If 200 more boats fish there, I would expect to have caught, you know, even less than half. And some notes on king salmon. I return all king salmon I catch that show signs of life, as do other fishermen I know.

The mesh size we use these days is 4¾-inch web. Some even use 4½-inch in the Nushagak, I've heard. And back in the day, they used to use 5-inch or 5��-inch mesh that caught more mature kings. So we're not targeting them. We're also not financially incentivized to catch them.

The canneries, I think, only pay us a dollar a pound for kings. So no one is actually targeting kings commercially. Some people retain them if they're dead, like me, and we cherish them and eat them. That's all I have. Oh, I have one more thing.

I don't think there is as much underreporting as you might think. ADFNG reminds all fishermen to report all kings taken, and I've heard stories of AWT boarding boats to enforce this. So me and others make sure to report kings that we take.

Thank you. Questions? Ms. Irwin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your testimony.

In the last couple years that the management plan has been enacted, have you seen a difference in the number of kings that you're pulling up? I fish in Igigik, so it's not really relevant. Thank you. Apologies. Yeah.

Mr. Wood. Thank you. You brought something up that I'd like you to clarify for me. So are you saying that if the dates were later in the Nushugak or the plan was changed more drastically there, that that would potentially push a certain number of boats into your district? Yeah.

If it was a hard start date of the 28th, for sure everyone would fish Igigik till the 26th. June 28th, and then they would do their 48 transfer period to time the 28th opening of the Nushagak. So there would probably be 800 boats in Igigiq, and they probably wouldn't open it because there'd be too many boats and the run hasn't really started. You know, July 1st is about when the run starts peaking in Igigiq. So it would mess up not only the Nushagak Red Run, but also Igigiq, Ugashik, and Naknekwejak.

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

Thanks, John. Appreciate your testimony today. Travis Wren, welcome.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to to provide public testimony this morning. My name is Travis Wren. I live in Dillingham, Alaska. I'm a 4th grade schoolteacher and a 4th generation commercial fisherman.

My father started taking me on the drift boat when I was 7 years old and have been involved in the fishery ever since. I did, although, take an 8-year break from commercial fishing to start guiding sports fishing for king salmon on the Nishigak River and other species throughout Bristol Bay. I would like to strongly encourage the Board of Fisheries to maintain the 32-foot vessel length limitation as written. I do remember in the early 1990s when enforcement activity upheld this regulation in Bristol Bay, including measuring vessels in local boatyards. There were a lot of fishermen chopping off their bows and making changes to be legal.

Nowadays, fishermen are building boats knowing they do not meet the 32-foot regulations. Now they want to change the regulations to make their boats legal. In fact, there are several proposals for changing fishing regulations to make things legal that are illegal.

I oppose all those proposals. These rules and regulations have been in place to help protect the fishery and Bristol Bay communities, and I urge the board to please keep them in place. Already with the enactment, enactment of the D permit, the board has changed the catch within the drift fleet to favor the D boats. Any length increase of Bristol Bay vessels will alter the catch within the drift fleet to favor one specific group of fishermen. Not only would this devalue the current vessels that have stayed within the current regulations, but it will also make it harder for the fishermen in our local Bristol Bay communities.

I support the Nishnaabeg District King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan initiated by this board in 2023. This plan has delayed commercial fishing openings, reduced fishing time during periods when king salmon are the most vulnerable, allowing for movement through the commercial district and into the rivers and increased escapement prior to commercial fishing. However, the plan only has been in place for 3 seasons. Given the longer life cycle of king salmon, I feel this is not enough time to fully evaluate its effectiveness. I am the author of Proposal 66.

Since my submission of this proposal, my opinions have changed and I will be recommending no action taken on Proposal 66. Although if the board does decide changes are necessary, I ask that the proposal remain available to ensure Conservation responsibility is shared across all user groups affecting king salmon in the Nishigak District. In closing, I respectfully ask the board to maintain the 32-foot vessel length limitation and leave the Nishigak District King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan unchanged so it can be evaluated over a full lifecycle of the king salmon. Thank you for your opportunity for us to give testimony. Thank you, Mr. Wren.

Have you submitted an RC noting that you would prefer the board take no action on Proposal 66? I have not. Would you do so, please? Yes. Thank you very much.

I don't see any other questions. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Jordan Head.

Morning, Jordan. Good morning.

All right.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. For the record, my name is Jordan Head. I'm the executive director of the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute. BBSRI is a nonprofit institute established in 1998 and guided by a board of directors made up of Bristol Bay watershed community leaders. For more than 25 years, we've worked closely with resource managers, the fishing industry, communities, and partners to to support long-term sustainability of Bristol Bay's fish stocks and fisheries through applied research, monitoring, and policy analysis.

One of BBSRI's core roles is to help identify research needs that are important to the overall management structure and to collaborate with the department and others to build and maintain that research capacity and integrate it into the overall management structure. One example is the Port Moller test fishery, which Travis and Stacy spoke about. That project was on the verge of being cut in the early 2000s when BBSRI took it over and worked with the department to build it into the valuable management tool it is today. Another example you heard about was the Bristol Bay Fisheries Collaborative. Over a series of budget cuts leading up to 2016, the department had lost about 30% of its budget in Bristol Bay, and BBSRI coordinated with communities, tribal groups, fishermen, industry and the department to fund priority management projects until the legislature could re— make the department whole again.

More recently, our focus has turned to Chinook salmon assessment. Several years ago, we began working with the department and stakeholders to build capacity towards a more robust assessment program. That work is ongoing, and you heard about it in Cole's presentation. With respect to the proposals in front of you on Nushagak King management, our involvement really began in 2018 when proposals before this board led to the formation of a board committee on Nushagak King Management. BBSRI was asked to serve as both the facilitator of that process and the technical study team supporting it, work that ultimately contributed to the Stock of Concern Management Plan and a modified Nushagak King Salmon Management Plan.

To support your deliberations on Nushagak King Management this cycle, we've prepared several materials including 2 in RC— or sorry, PC32, which is an objective look at how the plan has performed in its first 3 years. Also clarifying documentation on some of the department staff comments. In RC5, we produced a questionnaire, a survey of the user group to get their understanding on how the King Plan has been working. That went to the King Salmon Management Committee as well as the Bristol Bay ACs. RC 8, which looks at the effects of Proposal 61 if it had been implemented over the last 3 years.

I'll be here throughout the rest of the week, and I'm happy to participate as much as you need in Committee of the Whole to answer questions. Thank you. Thank you, Jordan. Mr. Carpenter. Thanks, Jordan.

Thanks for being here. Um, my question to you is this: we've heard a lot of Obviously, you've worked for the state for a long time and now you work for the research institute. So your understanding of the Nushkat King Salmon issue is, is, is runs very deep. And I guess my question to you is we've heard through public testimony and we've heard other discussions at this meeting specifically around King Salmon run timing. And I've been really trying to get my handle on it.

And from, from your experience in all the different positions that you've had, could you maybe touch on the run timing, the 50 percentile mark, and where that trend actually is going. Through the chair, Member Carpenter. Yeah, I was working with the department when the stock of concern designation was, was given. I gave a lot of the presentations at the 2022 Board of Fish meeting. In one of those presentations, we had a figure looking at run timing of Chinook salmon, and particularly when the midpoint of that run occurred in the district.

And what we saw is it had been trending earlier in, earlier into June since 1980. So when you look at the time series of 1980 through 2025, if we look at it now, what we've seen is it's trended earlier. When we do, when we develop this plan, the midpoint of the King Run in the district was June 25th. That's when 50% of the King Passage gets through the district. And that was in the board presentation, Stock of Concern Action Plan presentation at that time.

And that is an average from 1980 through 2020. But looking at it now, 1980 through 2025, if you average the run timing across all of those years, your average 50% in the district is June 25th. June 25th. But that has been trending earlier over time. If you look at a 20-year average, you are looking at about June 24th.

If you look at a 10-year average, you are looking at June 23rd as the midpoint of the King Run in the District. Thank you.

Thanks, Jordan. And I just want to thank BBSRI for sort of filling in and doing a lot of the stopgap work that the state has been unable to do because of budgetary constraints. Your organization is providing a lot of really valuable information and I appreciate it. Thanks. Yeah.

All right. Thank you. Thanks. Next up is Mariana Floresta, followed by Alexander Talek Pollock and Mike Davis.

Good morning. Welcome.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. My name is Mariano Floresta. I was born and raised in Clark's Point on the Nishnaabeg River. I would like to thank you for your time and effort for this meeting. My family have commercial salmon— salmon fish, both drift and gillnet, On the Nushagak.

My son and I both set net on Clark's Point Beach. Besides growing up hunting, trapping, gathering berries and plants, putting up salmon for winter is a huge part of our subsistence way of life. I also sit on the Nushagak Advisory Committee as a member. I am in opposition of proposal 61 through 69 concerning the King Salmon Management Plan. More studies and data collection is a big part of the king salmon stock conservation.

Therefore, I am in favor of keeping the existing king salmon management plan unchanged. I'm in— I oppose— I'm opposed to proposal 83 through 91, which seeks to change the 32-foot vessel regulation. Therefore, I support the current regulation as written.

I am in also opposition of proposal 75, allowing permit stacking. I do not believe one person should own two permits.

I know I am in opposition of proposal 60 to increase the net length in net length of setnetters in the Wood River Special Harvest Area. I fished up there and it's difficult enough to fish 25 fathoms of net.

I, I am in support of Proposal 56 to remove the sunset date and permanently adopt the current boundary line. I also support Proposal 57 as written. In conclusion, I would like to say that subsistence is a big part, big part of way of our life, and have to— as far as having salmon for the winter months. In past years, we've, we've seen plenty of kings, but now we're lucky to get 10 to 20. Commercial fishing is a big part of sustaining us through the winter.

Our family has commercial fished all our life and it would be difficult without it.

I'd like to add one more thing. I'm probably saying a lot of people are thinking, but I wish we'd have 5 minutes for our testimonies. I'd like to thank you for listening to our testimonies. Thank you, Mariana. I've heard that before, but you did a great job because you got 15 seconds left.

16 Seconds left, so well done, sir. Any questions? Thank you for being here, and thank you for making do with 3 minutes. Alexander Talek Polak? Is Alexander here this morning?

How about Mike Davis?

No Mike?

Mr. Abe Williams, I'm looking at you. I see you.

I know you're here. Welcome, Abe.

Madam Chair, excuse me, members of the board, good morning. Uh, thank you for your time and dedication, uh, to this process, and I really appreciate the work that you do here for the state. For the record, my name is Abe Williams. I was born and raised in King Salmon. My wife and I currently live here in Anchorage.

I'm a fourth-generation Bristol Bay commercial fisherman, 41 years and counting. I'm proud to have 3 sons fishing in the fishery alongside me. One fishes on board with me as a D permit owner. And the others own their own operations. I'm the author of Proposal 76, that's permit stacking, and Proposal 82 and 83 pertaining to boat— or that pertain to the Bristol Bay fleet vessel length.

Proposal 76, permit stacking. I ask the board to consider this proposal and adopt it into regulation for the benefit of the entire fleet. During my 41 years fishing in Bristol Bay, I have experienced firsthand the economic and biological peaks and valleys in our fishery that our fishery has endured. During these times, we've seen fishermen, local communities, and governing bodies seek to eliminate these challenges. A CFEC study of our fishery determined that the optimum number of Bristol Bay drift permits to be in the range of 1,000 to 1,200 permits.

Currently, we have 1,800+ permits in operation, and more than 400 of these permits operate under the current law allowing deep permit operations. This has benefited the entire fleet in multiple ways, one of which is removing 45 miles of gear from the water, allowing more economic benefit for all. And just for a visual, of that 45 miles of gear, that would be like setting your net in Wasilla and finally getting to Anchorage and driving around this building 3 times before you ran out of net to set. And I think that the— under the current regulation that allows deep permit operations, it has certainly benefited those that couldn't afford a boat to get into the fishery and get on somebody else's boat. And it's been beneficial.

But I'd like to see this board adopt and take this to the next step, and that's trying to get to an optimum number of boats in Bristol Bay because it is very crowded. I don't know, some of you may have been out there and seen what happens. It's congested and kind of ugly in some cases. So we could just create more room and remove more gear. And I think that has a possible benefit to the, the king salmon issue that we're looking at here.

So Proposal 82, that's vessel length. My proposal seeks to address the issue brought forward by the troopers during last year's Bristol Bay board cycle. Proposal 82 maintains the 30-foot, 32-foot hull limit and addresses concerns of possible enforcement issues when considering gillnet rollers, outdrives, overall length, trim tabs, water jets, and safety equipment. All of these concerns are generated by the newer vessels that we've seen built in the last 10 years, and rightfully so. These vessels are powerful.

And they're modern. But many of us that have built brand new jet boats, we didn't do it to elude the law. We did it within the confines of the law. And I submitted engineered— Elliott Bay Engineering document that talks a little bit about additional planing surface and additional flotation, which are probably some of the biggest concerns in regard to the regulation. Thank you.

Thanks, Abe. Any questions? Thanks for being here. I hope you'll be here for committees. Yes, thank you.

Great. Up next, I've got Lisa and Hattie Albecker, followed by Dan Verhusen and Joe Echo Hawk.

Good morning, ladies. Welcome.

Press the button. There you go. There it is. For the record, I am Lisa Albecker.

I'm Hattie Albecker. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. Please refer to RCs 10, 11, 12, 16, and 29. I am Lisa Albecker. I am a third-generation setnet fisherman from Ugashik Village.

My family has participated in the Ugashik setnet fishery for nearly 90 years. My grandparents Olga and Michael Enright were among the original occupants of the Ugashik Village setnet sites beginning in 1938. The permit I fished today was passed down to me by my mother, Hattie. I continue to use— I continue to setnet in Ugashik Village, and today 4th and 5th generation family members assist my 82-year-old father, which is their grandfather and great-grandfather, in operating his setnet site. This fishery is our livelihood and a long-lasting family tradition.

I am proud to carry on our family legacy. The area I am speaking to is located on the east bank of the Ugashik River. In front of Ugashik Village, which is closed to drift net gillnetters. Over the past 6 seasons, extensive mud bank development along the east shore where set nets are operated has continued to worsen. These conditions prevent us from effectively fishing our sites and limit our ability to fish the full 50 fathoms of allowable gear.

As some of you who visited Ugashik Village last summer have witnessed these conditions firsthand and understand how significantly they affect the majority of fish of village setnetters. These are natural environmental changes and we need reasonable flexibility to adapt. By adopting Proposal 79, setnet fishermen in Ugashik Village will be— would be better able to effectively fish their entitled 50 fathoms of gear. As determined by the, the tides. This proposal provides a practical solution to real conditions on the ground.

Thank you for your consideration of Proposal 79. Thank you for your service of this board.

On this board, I have just a little addition for those of you who are new on the board. These set-net sites were actually— these set-net sites in Yugashik Village were actually put there by an act of Congress in the 1930s for the widowed, elderly, and disabled. So they're very unique to have set-net sites that far up in the river.

Thank you for your time, your consideration of the proposal and your service on this board. Any questions? Miss Irwin. Thank you for your testimony. How many years now ongoing has this, has this been an issue for you folks?

I'm sure it's, it's been over a period of years, but how long has it really been affecting your ability to use the Fifty Fathoms?

Since 2016, '17, in there. Yeah, we were just looking at pictures yesterday where there was a front loader down and right in front, right in front of our place, getting the big boy set up and all of that. Well, there's no way you can get a front loader anyplace on that beach unless it's above the set net sites, I believe. Thank you. Yeah.

All right. Thank you for your testimony today. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate you being here. Dan Verhusen. Okay.

I thought I saw him here. Nope.

All right. Moving on, Joe Eckehawk, followed by Kent Anderson and Luke Peterson. Welcome, Joe. Good morning. Hi.

Good morning. My name is Joe Echo Hawk. I've been a setnetter in the Kweejack every summer since 2004, and I serve on the board of the Kweejack Setnetters Association here today as its representative. We submitted PC-116, and we appreciate your consideration of that document. The KSA represents 82 active dues-paying members and our set gillnet permit holders in the Kwijak section represent a significant and experienced portion of the Bristol Bay's historic fish gear, fixed gear fishery.

We seek to provide a unified voice for our members and to ensure fair access for our setnet fishers to the sockeye bound for the Kwijak River. To highlight a few proposals, 45 through 47, we support extending the dates from July 17th to July— or yeah, July 17th to July 22nd as a way to support orderly management and reduce abrupt shifts in fishing pressure. The drift fleet is mobile and can participate across multiple districts, and large late-season influxes into the Naknek Cuijak quickly intensify effort. A modest date extension helps preserve consistent opportunity for fishers who are stationed in the district throughout the season while supporting effective biological management. Uh, 48 and 49, we support modifying the Cuijak River special harvest area from a fixed 3-to-1 drift-to-set ratio to either a 2-to-1 ratio or dynamic ratio based on participation.

The, uh, Kweejack Special Harvest Area was modeled after the NACNIC plan during an out-of-cycle meeting last March. The board wanted any refinements to occur during this in-cycle meeting, and we believe a more equitable ratio better reflects the realities of the Kweejack River. If the Kweejack Special Harvest Plan is triggered, drift fishermen can relocate to other districts with continued opportunity set setnetters cannot. Under the current structure, setnetters would fish half the allowable gear allowed to drifters and receive, uh, 1/3 of the fishing time with no reasonable, uh, ability to move to other districts. 2:1 Ratio would provide more balanced opportunity, especially given that much of the drift fleet has proven to fish elsewhere in times of special harvest.

Uh, Proposal 50, incorporating fish quality into management decisions. The fishery's current economic strength relies on strong sockeye returns. If lean years occur, long-term viability will depend on premium quality commanding premium prices. We support taking steps now to recognize that reality. 6162, We oppose measures that limit district biologists' ability to manage sockeye escapement and risk potential over-escapement.

The SOC plan has not yet completed a full life cycle and deserves time for proper evaluation. 71 Through 74, we oppose a general district. An intercept fishery complicates stock-specific management and undermines ability to achieve district-level goals. 92, We oppose the Naknek Cuijak— we oppose closing the Naknek Cuijak District after July 25th. Late July fishing provides opportunity for locals and reflects increasingly late sockeye returns.

Any closure should be supported by accurate, updated data. Uh, thank you for your time and your consideration. I'll be here for the next few days if anyone wants to talk more. Thank you for your testimony. Any questions?

Appreciate you being here. Thanks. Thanks. Kent Anderson, followed by Luke Peterson and Harmony Wainer.

Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. Uh, for the record, my name is Kent Anderson. I'm the owner of Alaska Salmon Camp, a small sport fishing camp on the Nushagak River with a permit under the Chugyung Land Use Program. I've been operating on the Nushagak since 2004 and a licensed sport fishing guide in the state of Alaska since 1995.

And while I don't reside here full-time, I've spent more than half my life and almost half the year within the state of Alaska. So I I greatly enjoy the state. I'm also the author of what I'm hearing is quite controversial, Proposal 44. The intent of the proposal regarding subsistence fishing was by no means to limit or eliminate, I should say, subsistence fishing. I, I, or subsistence use of the resource.

I greatly understand the traditional, cultural, nutritional, economic values, everything associated with using the resource on the land where you live. So the intent was not to prohibit somebody from, from that. The intent was to, by putting some limits on kings, which are currently not controlled at all, was to give another tool in the toolbox for the district person, district Fish and Game personnel to possibly use it as a management tool in conserving kings. Just by encouraging maybe, let's say, a restricted use. The example I used was 12 kings per person, which is 3 times as many as a recreational angler is allowed to catch.

It was just a suggestion. If the local or if the district people feel 20 50 or unlimited is more warranted. I fully understand and respect that. It was just submitted as a proposal to— in terms of conservation for kings. As a sport fishing operator, we're a very small community.

I'm not sure how aware of how little impact we have. We're currently with the 4 kings per year, only one of which can be a large king. The predominant catch we're retaining in the fishery is smaller male kings.

So we're not having a huge impact and the— on the total run as a whole. I'm also the author of Proposal 62. The reason for proposing 62, with what I've seen in my 22 seasons operating on the Nushagak, is the window of time from roughly June 20th to June 30th, 28th, we see a lot of kings come in. And if the kings don't come in, they can't get to the spawning grounds. And even, you know, we are catching kings.

I'm not saying we're not a consumptive user of the resource as well. But what we see just in that one roughly week window and even a smaller window of 5 days between the 25th and 30th, we see lots of kings. I'll close it right here. So my conclusion will be, in the name of all of us that enjoy the resource in all aspects, both from a food and from a recreation, we all should be taking a little bit of a bite out of it. You know, to conserve the kings, we all need to give in a little, and if it means not fishing for a few days, I understand.

I understand the sockeye side, but letting those extra— if it's 10,000, 20,000— thank you, fully supported. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Quick question for you. You bet.

So, um, you said that you predominantly retain smaller males. Do you retain any hens? So with the current— your lodge practice, uh, with the current regulations allowing only one king over 28 inches retained, What we see is the makeup of the run of kings. We tend to see smaller males at the front end. The average, let's just say, 3, 4, 5-year-old females, which are males and females, but they seem to come in the middle of the run.

And with the— do I have a lodge policy of no females being retained? No. But we do adhere to the regulations. And what we see predominantly, we don't see a lot of females. That are smaller fish.

Exactly. Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Thank you for your testimony. What has your king catch rate been in the last 3 years, and how does that compare to the historical catch rate that you've seen? Okay.

The catch rate the last 2 years has been better than what the sonar counter has been reflecting. It hasn't been like, I'll say, the good old days. But we have been catching better numbers the last 2 seasons. I'd say 3, 4, 5 years ago, it was a very challenging fishery. And comparing it to what it was 20 years ago, I would say we're catching on the average probably half to a third of what we used to see.

And that's reflective also of the run being down. This year with the run being as low as what was reported, I personally feel that we, we had many more fish than that actually in the river. Thank you. Yep. Mr. Carpenter, thank you.

Just, just a quick question. What time do— does your lodge and other lodges on the Nushekek, when do they generally open and people start showing up? Sure. So we're, uh, all of us are under the land use permit restrictions on number of days we can be there, so we target all of our trips. Most of us run 4 or 5-day trips beginning around June 15 to 18, give or take the year and how the calendar falls, but somewhere in that range.

And most of us are done and wrapped up and have used up our allotted days on the river by July 10th.

So that's the approximate operating window. My personal operating window is June 16 to July 10. Thank you. Mr. Wood and then Mr. Swenson. Yeah, thanks.

I did a little job up there for the guys right above the sonar that patrolled the place and on their cabin, and they took me to a lodge and I got to talk to that lodge owner and a fair bit of others, and they had a kind of an incentive program of like for large kings, incentive to return the large kings and put names on the plaques. Back saying so-and-so caught a 40-pounder or something. Do you have anything like that in your business to encourage people to throw back larger kings? No, I don't have any incentive program. Okay, thanks.

Yeah, just one second. When did the emergency order come out this year that closed the king set retention? I believe, I believe this year was July 7th. And that after then that allowed no retention at that point, correct? Yes.

But you could still catch and release? Yes, we could catch and release. And that week, if I remember right, we, we caught a lot of sockeye. Okay, thank you. Yep.

Mr. Anderson, I just want to thank you for being here. You submitted a proposal, you're here to talk about it, and I respect that. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you.

I'll be available during, during other meetings later on. Awesome. Thank you. Luke Peterson.

Morning. Morning. My name is Luke Peterson. I am the president of the Bristol Bay Fishermen's Association. We are a voluntary group of about 350 members, drifters and some setnetters.

Our comments are available in PC 31. I was going to highlight a few things here. The Bristol Bay ADFNG is the gold standard in management around the world. They're amazing. They do a really good job.

And as I look around this room, I have never seen so many Bristol Bay fishermen in agreement on one subject. That is the Nushkegak King Salmon Management Plan and to leave it alone. The plan has only been in place for a couple of years. We haven't been able to see its, its total effect.

RC-18 is kind of delineating the difference between what the plan is doing right now versus what would happen if it was— the date was pushed back to the 28th. And that effectively says that 3,500 kings would have been saved for a monetary cost of $53 million. So it's a pretty big difference in money. And also speaking with the BBSRI, which we just heard a few minutes ago, was over the last 10-year average for the midpoint of the king run, we're looking at more like June 23rd. So it's quite a bit earlier than the 28th that was modeled off of the sonar date and a 40-year average, not the more recent 10-year average that we've been dealing with.

So we're letting a very large percentage of these kings go by. And the, the real shame here would be is if we kept it closed and didn't let the fleet fish and we actually crashed the the entire sockeye system with too many reds going up. That would really be bad. We don't, we don't want to do that. So to summarize, king salmon plan's working.

And I really want to thank the BBSRI for getting that aerial survey going because we all know that the sonar isn't working like everybody should hope. So aerial survey is the next good tool that we're going to be incorporated into some of this data. The mark recapture program is going to help also. So just leave the Nushagak plan alone. In a similar thread, we support the ADF&G's proposals 54 and 55 of scrapping the silver management plans.

If the fleet is not fishing on the silvers, the department shouldn't have to be wasting its valuable resources on running a management plan that, that nobody's fishing on commercially. So let, let the department use their valuable resources as they see fit. Just like the Nush plans, I'd like to highlight that we support not making any changes to the Kwijak River special harvest area that was just set up. We haven't fished on it yet. So we don't know if it's broken, but to me it seems like it's a pretty fair plan.

Uh, we support— we oppose 48, 49, 50 changing the, uh, um, allocations with the setnetters. As of right now, the, uh, setnetters in all other districts other than Nushagak are ahead on their allocation, so leave that be. Great, thank you. Questions? Thank you for your testimony today.

And I'll be here all week, so we're here for questions. Great. Thank you. Harmony Weiner, followed by Gayla Hasseth and Everett Anderson.

Welcome, Harmony. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Harmony Weiner and my Yup'ik name is Suguk. I'm a satnet crew member working for my mother and my brother.

As permit holders and a subsistence user and a 6th generation Alaska Native fishing family on Naknek Beach in the Naknek District. I grew up in Naknek, Dutch Harbor, and Anchorage. I also work in fishery science and management across the federal, academic, and nonprofit sectors. I submit this testimony as an individual not representing my employer or any affiliated organization. I'm reiterating my comment, PC 258.

I support proposals 45, 46, and 47. Support for proposal 57. I fished Ecook last summer and it was quite shocking that they don't have a boundary between set and drift gillnet, especially coming from another district. Opposition to proposal 92. Implementing a date-based closure of July 25th for all commercial fishing ignores increasing variability in run timing that we have seen in recent decades.

From my experience as a senator, bycatch of other salmon species and trout in late season is very limited. Management should remain responsive to actual run conditions rather than rigid calendar deadlines. Opposition to Proposal 105 and 185 and king salmon management measures in the Naknek District. Before adopting a new Bristol Bay king salmon management plan, particularly one to the Naknek River, or implementing significant fishing restrictions, accurate and comprehensive data supported by meaningful enumeration measures are needed. Unlike the Nushigak with its sonar, we do not have king salmon targeting enumeration measures in Naknek District besides tower counting, which is limited in timing, catch accounting, and sport fish logbook program that has been discontinued.

Severe restrictions on fishing time would likely result in overescapement of our sockeye salmon reducing overall harvest value and economic outcomes for our community. SedNet operations also face logistical constraints in deploying and retrieving gear when compared with Drift Fleet's higher mobility and use of hydraulic reels.

I also urge the board to look at the larger picture of king salmon life cycle, including ocean interactions and limited prey availability due to competition, competition with a growing amount of hatchery-released fish in the North Pacific. I support the development of a strong stakeholder-driven process or task force that includes representation from all user groups and managers. Achieving collective buy-in is essential if we are to move forward with a fair and effective manner, and one that reduces conflict among user groups and instead focuses on a shared conservation outcome that we all want for the Naknek River and its king salmon. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

Any questions? Questions. Appreciate you being here. Thanks. Gayla Hassett?

No Gayla yet.

Everett Anderson.

Morning, Everett. Welcome.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the board. Uh, for the record, Everett Anderson. Vice President of Fisheries Policy for Bristol Bay Native Corporation, here to address Proposal 188. Just want to highlight a few points. First is that the State of Alaska Legislature released a Seafood Industry Task Force report.

In that, it provides a vision for the future. Including sustainability, value maximization, increased efficiency, access, and opportunity, meaning support systems that allow consistent fisheries access. From a federal prior perspective— excuse me— we have legislation working its way through a process, the Working Waterfronts Act, that will benefit coastal fishery-dependent communities, providing mechanisms for infrastructure development, workforce, climate energy transition, support for the blue economy.

Currently, the Seafood— Certified Seafood International RFP program is assessing the statewide herring fishery.

Once the, the herring fishery is certified, that's going to elevate it onto a global basis, which would be important to a lot of user groups. There's still work to conduct on understanding the data associated with moving a resource from one area to another, not just the state side, but also some concurrent actions that are being explored at the federal fishery level in certain sectors that may want to tap into herring as a prohibited species catch. So there's, there's some work to be done in terms of understanding some of those implications of removal and how they may affect other, other user groups, particularly in this suggestion, Togiak and the region.

The, the recent efforts of the statewide herring revitalization effort that one of the testifiers alluded to yesterday shouldn't be placed on the shelf quite yet. I think what it did with a lot of participants from across the state was certainly raise the awareness of the importance of revitalizing this very important fishery. For multiple uses. And I think that had certainly a downstream effect to some of the coastal regional communities of which I do get to work with. And so with that, I just want to say that we're opposed to the proposal.

Thank you, Everett. Any questions? Appreciate you being here. Thank you. We will see you back at the end for your TK testimony.

Yes, thank you. Michael Link with BBEDC. Is Michael here this morning?

Samuel Rutov?

No Samuel? Leilani Luerz?

Welcome back, Leilani. And following Leilani will be Georgianna Dray. God, I'm nervous again. Madam Chair and members of the board, my name is Leilani Luerz, and I'm a tribal member and shareholder of Togiak, Alaska. I have been a commercial fisherman for nearly 30 years.

I grew up subsisting in the spring and early summer from our ancestral fishing grounds in the old village asviigak, a 2.5-hour boat ride from Togiak, where we would fill our fish racks with nearly 150 kings, enough to last a winter and share with others inside and outside of our community. Our last harvest in our ancestral fishing grounds was only 10 kings 15 years ago. It was then that our family decided to forego bringing our entire family— I wasn't going to cry— to our ancestral lands to conserve the kingfishery. It was then that our family actively avoided bringing home kings in order to conserve the kingfishery. Our smokehouses and freezers have switched to— from the high-fat content of king salmon to the less filling sockeye.

We and many other families from the community have decreased the amount of kings we retain. How much more do our families have to sacrifice before something is done? The current king salmon management plan needs to take into consideration the entire life cycle of this king salmon. And the management practices of the federal waters. Salmon do not follow arbitrary boundaries.

On a daily basis, as soon as the Amendment 80 trawling fleet arrive in our waters, we see them trawling the opening of our bay during the time king salmon are making their way home. We are actively taking the steps to preserve our livelihoods both commercially and in a way we subsist. What have they, the trawl fleet, have done to decrease the salmon bycatch, and does our current management plan take their management practices into consideration?

I would also like to share my support of Proposal 93. The current fishing schedule in the Blue Cook section creates significant challenges for the small local boat fleet. Weather conditions in this district are frequently harsh. The bay is approximately 40 miles of open ocean, making safe access highly dependent on weather windows. The proposal also increases the involvement of local Indigenous limited entry permits, as many of them have historically only fished in Klukuk Bay.

I'm also in support of Proposal 94, which would remove unnecessary limitations on the Commissioner's emergency order authority in the Tokayuk District, providing managers with greater flexibility. And complements Proposal 93 and allows in-season decisions to better account for weather run, run timing, and conservation needs. I do not support Proposal 188. It was not developed with the region nor the community at the table, or with their best interests in mind, and only those that are self-serving and for personal benefit. We honor for your consideration and for your continued commitment to managing Alaska's fisheries in a way that supports supports conservation, safety, and local communities.

Thank you, Leilani. Appreciate your testimony today. Questions? Ms. Irwin. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your testimony. Um, are you able to replace kings with sockeye for the same cultural purposes? Uh, due to the decreased fat content, sockeye It does in a way, however, it's less filling for our families. We do— like, our freezer used to be full of king salmon, and now we have 1 or 2 fillets if we're lucky for that season. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for being with us today.

Georgiana Dray followed by Casey Kupchayek. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Georgiana Dray. I am originally from Manokotak, which is a small community located 25 miles southwest of Dillingham in the Bristol Bay region.

I grew up between Manokotak, Twin Hills, and Togiak. I reside in Dillingham where I work for the Bristol Bay Native Association, but prior to this job, I worked for the local hospital for 13 years. But today I am speaking on behalf of myself and my family. I've lived a subsistence lifestyle my entire life. It's all I knew growing up, moving to fish camp every summer, going to Togiak and Twin Hills to subsist with my parents and family.

Today I don't have the luxury to teach my kids all of the things that I lived and experienced growing up because of the lack of jobs in the smaller communities. However, as I've gained new perspectives in this new role working for— in natural resources, has opened up my eyes to the importance of ensuring that we listen to the local people that live in the region as we manage and sustain our resources for the next generations—our kids, our grandkids, our great-grandkids. We need to look at what we are doing today for a better tomorrow. Today I am here to testify on Proposal 188, which I urge this board to oppose. Herring is not just a fish to the people of Togiak and Bristol Bay.

They are a foundation of our way of life. For generations, herring have sustained our communities culturally, nutritionally, and spiritually. Long before commercial fisheries or state management existed, our people depended on herring as one of the first foods of the spring. Herring and herring eggs signal renewal after winter and marks the beginning of our seasonal subsistence life cycle.

As the traditional knowledge in harvesting was passed down from elders to our youth, Our traditional knowledge isn't simply shared and taught, it is lived experience. Our knowledge comes from generations of careful observation, from when herring arrive, where they spawn, how thick they spawn, how abundant the schools are, and how those patterns shift when environmental disturbance and industrial activity are present. This Indigenous knowledge must be respected and included in decision-making, especially listening to those that live in the Togiak District year-round. They're the ones that observe and experience the resource in its entirety from beginning to end. The voices of Togiak must be heard and our relationship with herring must be respected.

Gwiyana for this opportunity to speak before you. Thank you, Georgianna. Any questions? Thank you for your testimony and for being here today.

Casey Kupchayak, welcome.

Waka. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Casey Kupchayek. My Yup'ik name is Aaruj Druuga, and I am a tribal member and shareholder originally from Togiak. I grew up subsistence fishing these waters, and I have a— I've been commercial drift fisherman in Bristol Bay for 16 years, operating the original limited entry permit I inherited from my grandfather.

I'm here today to voice my strong opposition to the boat lengthening and permit stacking proposals, as well as the reestablishment of a general district Nushika King Salmon Management Plan. While some argue these changes bring efficiency, we must look at who that efficiency actually serves. My family holds a second permit, my late younger brother's, which I could technically stack to benefit my own operation, but I would rather not do that. I am choosing to stand against stacking because I see the bigger picture. Our local Indigenous permit ownership is already at devastating lows.

Stacking and larger boats drive up the cost of entry, consolidates the wealth more, and makes it more difficult for small operations to compete in areas where high volumes is most possible, making it more difficult for the next generation of Bristol Bay residents and locals to buy in. We need more boots on deck and more local families supported by this fishery, not fewer. I strongly oppose proposals 71 through 74 regarding the reestablishment of a district— general district. While these proposals claim to address enforcement issues and efficiency, a general district would fundamentally favor larger-scale, faster mobile operations and outside interests over the local small boat fleet. By moving the fishery into offshore waters, we invite increased interception of mixed stocks and create a gold rush environment that rewards those with the largest vessels and the most capital.

Furthermore, expanding the fishing area does not solve the issue of illegal activity. It simply moves it to deeper waters where it is even harder to monitor. We should be focusing on protecting the integrity of our traditional districts, which ensure the benefits of this fishery remain tied to our local communities and the specific river systems. Regarding the Nushiket King Salmon Management Plan, I find it ironic that outside associations are suddenly so eager to dictate how we manage our rivers. It is hard to take management advice from groups that have already run their own king runs into the ground.

My mom grew up in Kenai pre-commercial guiding until recently, and the kings have only declined since their arrival. We don't need to import recovery goals from people who are only now realizing the cost of their own mismanagement. If we— if these outside interests want to see what a successful sustained yield fishery actually looks like, they should be taking notes from us, not the other way around. Let our current plan take its full cycle and see the results before we determine our way forward. In closing, I want to remind the board of the department's primary goal.

To ensure that the use and development of our resources are in the best interests of the economy and well-being of the people of the state. For the well-being of the people of Bristol Bay and many other Alaska-based fishermen, I urge you to oppose these proposals. The decisions you make here shouldn't just be about maximizing harvest. They should be about the long-term health of our fisheries for Alaskans and the communities that still depend on them. Hwai'ana Chucknuck for your time and considering the future of our home of Crystal Bay.

Thank you, Casey. Any questions? Thank you for your testimony today. Okay, let's go ahead and take a, a break. Let's come back on the record at 10:20, and we'll kind of— we'll wrap it up with testimony.

Thank you.

All right, welcome back, folks. The time is 10:26. We're going to continue with public testimony, so we're going to wrap up our list, and then I'm going to take up second calls for the following people that missed the first call: Alexander Tollek-Pollock, Mike Davis, Dan Verhusen, Gayla Hosseth, Michael Link, and Samuel Rutov. So when we complete the list here, um, I'll take second calls for those folks, and then we'll conclude public testimony. So the next name on my list Today is Tom Rollman, followed by Warren Gibbons, Zach Brophy, and Travis Ball.

Hi, Tom. Welcome.

Madam Chair, members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Tom Rollman. I'm a lifelong Alaskan, and my family has setnetted in the Nushagak District of Bristol Bay since 1984. I'm here today to testify on several different proposals, the most important of which are proposals 61 and 62 regarding the King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan and the hard June 28th opening date for the commercial fishery. I sat in the audience yesterday listening to testimony while working on what I was going to say for mine.

I had it all written up, ready to go, but after listening to all the different speakers opposing changing the King Salmon Management Plan, I realized there wasn't much else that I could add that hadn't already been said. What really struck me though was that after listening to dozens of people testify, there were only two people that testified in favor of Proposal 61 and 62 and changing the plan, and those were two members of a group not affiliated with our fishery in any way. It frustrates me to no end to see an outside group try to come in and influence an issue that directly affects affects us, the stakeholders on this issue. The overwhelming support for the current King Salmon Stock of Concern management plan is unprecedented. I won't quote any more statistics or reasons because you've heard them all, but I hope that you will seriously consider leaving the current plan in place and letting it play out.

In the time I have remaining, I'd like to weigh in on several additional proposals. I'm opposed to proposal 58, that attempts to modify the trigger to open the Wood River Special Harvest Area. This proposal seeks to increase the trigger in years of higher projected escapement. Increasing the trigger to open the wood would result in lost fishing opportunity on this foregone harvest. It should be noted that many local Dillingham residents access this fishery due to its proximity to town.

Some don't fish anywhere else but in the Wood River. I'm also opposed to Proposal 59 that seeks to change how gear types are allocated openings on the Wood River Special Harvest Area. Currently, the gear type that is behind in allocation in the Bay gets to fish in the Wood. Typically, this is the setnet fleet because we are usually behind on allocation. Fishing in the Wood River allows additional fishing opportunity on fish that would normally go unharvested and helps to even out allocation.

It has been working well for years and should be left alone. I encourage you to take no action on this proposal. Finally, I'm in favor of Proposal 80, which seeks to allow joint venture setnet operations in Bristol Bay. Allowing a joint venture or co-op for setnetters would allow family operations with multiple permits like mine and many others to legally commingle fish as well as pick and deliver fish from a family member's net. Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to discussing these proposals further in committee.

Thank you. Thanks, Tom. Any questions? Appreciate your testimony today. Warren Gibbons.

Good morning, Warren.

Good morning. My name is Warren Gibbons. I'm the president of the Bristol Bay Reserve Association.

We're a marine insurance pool that has, for the last 30 years, is one of the few organizations that has worked to reduce the operating overhead of the Bristol Bay Fleet. Many of, many of our members are sitting in this audience today, and I'm proud to be associated with them regardless of this or that proposal.

Proposal number 70 is what I'd like to talk about today, and that requests that you consider expanding the north line of UGASHEK out to the 3-mile limit and then bringing that line back into Cape Metcalf. My estimation is it would expand the district by 30 to 40% and allow us to gain some measure of parity with the districts that are below Ugashik and above Ugashik. Both Outer Port Hyden and Igugiaq go out to the 3-mile limit. Yet we are, uh, our area is considerably reduced. Um, one of the motivating factors that got me to look into this was an anecdotal report that I got that, uh, in, um, 2024, over 1/3 of, of the Igigiik harvest was of Yugashic origin.

And so I reached out to the state and asked them for whatever information they could provide, and they gave me a 10-year overview of all interception in all rivers based on genetics. And it's with that that you could— I, I put together RC 34.

And went back 5 or 6 years to, to point out to you that this is a pretty huge deal if you're a Yugashik fisherman.

Since 19— since 2020, if all the Igigiik interception of Yugashik stocks were eliminated, the Yugashik fisheries harvest would increase by 34%.

In fact, in 2019, the Ugashik harvest was 1 million fish. The Igigiik interception was 1.1 million fish. And I defy anybody to make a living off of that calculation. Um, albeit that's an extreme example.

But it's the state's mathematics, not mine.

I struggle to understand why I'm just learning of all this data here in 2026 when the state has been collecting it for 10 years. I would hope that it would be published annually to where we could all review it. Um, and I struggle also that I seem to be the only civilian that has this information.

So I would encourage you to question the department as to what's going on here. Okay. Do you have a concluding statement? Because your time is over. Yes.

Quickly, please. The, um, the solution for the state is to either restrict Igigiq or pull them in. That would cause a civil war.

I think my solution speaks to a mitigating factor to expand the Ugashic boundary modestly, and I thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions? Appreciate you being here today. Zach Brophy followed by Travis Ball.

Hi, Zach.

Madam Chair and board members, thank you for the opportunity and your time. My name is Zach Brophy. I'm a Bristol Bay vessel and permit owner. Cumulatively, my family owns 4 Bristol Bay fishing vessels, 6 permits, and we're responsible for over 20 crewmen, many of which are family, and all rely on this fishery to some capacity. Over the past 15 years, the bay has become a significant part of our lives, and its meaning to myself and my family could not be expressed in a few minutes of testimony.

With that being said, the decision— the decisions being made that impact the future of this fishery need to be made with a great deal of care and preferably as much scientific backing as possible.

I would like to express my and my family's strong opposition to any proposals making any change to the Nushagak King Salmon Stock Concern Plan. This board enacted a plan 3 years ago that they believed would help address the issue. I would ask that the board allow the necessary time to see the current plan through. Changing the plan with little science— scientific backing and enacting a hard start fishing date within an ever-changing run in the Nushagak District feels very irresponsible.

We also support Proposal 95, registration and re-registration. Since free reek was removed, early season participation has been reduced as fishermen hesitate to make district decisions until more information is provided and return strength and genetics to different districts is clear. The negative effects of this trend have resulted in less early season, early season harvest by the fleet, reduced opportunity to test out new or existing equipment for both the processors and the fishermen, and less training time for vessel crews in calm and controlled environments. This argument— the argument to remove free week in 2015 was the fishermen were harvesting fish in one district and delivering in another, making it difficult for ADF&G to manage allocation or returns. These changes would address those concerns that were argued when free week was removed in 2015.

It would allow more early season participation, training, testing, and address many safety concerns for our fishing crews. Thank you.

Thanks, Zach. Any questions? Appreciate your testimony today. Travis Ball with the Nushagak AC.

And then following Travis's testimony, we will have George Wilson with the Naknek Kujek AC.

Hi, Travis. Welcome. Are you going to give your AC report or your personal testimony first? Yes, Madam Chair. I will be doing the ACs first.

And then if I have time, then I will go into my personal at that point. And I will let you know I am changing my hat. Thank you. Whenever you are ready. Okay.

Thank you. Get my right glasses on here. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board. My name is Travis Ball. I live and represent— live in and represent the village of Aleknagik on the Nushkeag.

I'm on the Nushkeag AC and currently hold the position of vice chair. I'm a lifelong Alaskan resident, fourth-generation fisherman, and I've lived in the watershed for over 25 years. The Nushagak AC is made up of 15 members, 2 alternates, and, and represent 9 different communities in Nushagak District drainage. Within our committee, we have CFEC drift and setnet permit holders, sport fishers, guides, and all members participate in subsistence activities. Our AC minutes can be found in your meeting information under AC number 9.

These minutes contain our actions on relevant proposals to our jurisdiction.

Our meetings spanned two different days and were consolidated for ease of review in our submission. I will start in numerical order to keep it simple and straightforward. Proposal 44 seeks to limit access to king salmon and home pack from the commercial fleet. Our AC unanimously opposes Proposal 014. Citing and affirming subsistence is a priority and discuss the perceived misunderstanding by the proposer of how the commercial fishery is prosecuted.

Proposal 50, we oppose 014 and discuss that the quality of the fish is the entire fleet's— is to the entire fleet's benefit and should be enforced by the processor, not by adding regulatory complexity. Proposal 54 and 55 both seek to repeal the Coho Salmon Management Plan with one notable difference. 54 Has language to cease any commercial opportunity, whereas 55 would allow opportunity via EO authority. 54, We opposed 0-14, and 55 was supported 12-1. Proposal 56, we voted unanimously removing the sunset clause and permanently adopting the current defined offshore locations for Ee'kuk and Clark set gillnet fishery.

Coastal erosion is a problematic throughout Alaska, and this was implemented to address these issues. Proposal 57. We had a lot of discussion on this. The AC recognizes the unique challenges of the proposer on Ee'kuk Beach and strongly spoke to the need for more enforcement to protect these operations. We amended the proposal to define gear.

The amended language we put in, which you will see in our minutes: in the Nushagak District, no part of a drift vessel, gillnet line, buoy, or other device used to drift a gillnet may be operated so as to come in contact with a set gillnet line anchor, a peg, stake, buoy, or other device used to operate a set net. As amended, we supported that 14 to 0. Proposals 58, 59, 60, 50, 51, and 60. These all address facets of the Wood River Special Harvest Area, requesting modification to triggers, allocations, and length of nets allowable. They opposed all three of these proposals with conversations regarding protection of the river, including the unenumerated McClung King Run.

58, We opposed 11 to 2. 59 Was 0 to 14, and 60 was 10 to 3. Proposals 61 through 69 seek to make modifications to the Nushagak King Salmon Stock Concern Plan. Our AC discussed each of these proposals independently and voted on each based off individual merits, but I will address them as a collective in my testimony as the AC was opposed to all. Our advisory committee discussed at length the notable impacts of the plan to date, including delayed start of the commercial fishery in the Nushagak District in addition to the frequent breaks taken by the fleet, standing down for full tide cycles, and reducing setnet operation activity dramatically.

Sport use catch retention were restricted, and overall both user groups shared the conservation efforts. Subsistence users were not restricted but did note some changes in harvest opportunity when the fleet stood down. The Nushkeag AC played an active role in the creation of this stock Concern Plan, and we urge the board to take no action on proposals 61 through 69 and allow the plan to at least remain intact for one more board cycle that will closely align with the life cycle of the king salmon, which is understood to be up to 7 years. One board cycle is enough to understand conservation measures have been enacted, but not to fully vet the impacts of the plan so far. BBSRI, along with the department staff, were active in our meetings, and information shared in the BBSRI PC32, the assessment of the stock concern plan, and information provided in BBSRI's RC18 helped REC in our decision-making process.

The Nushkak AC represents communities who rely on subsistence for means of feeding our families. We participate in the commercial and sport fisheries for economic purposes and recreation alike. We have vested interest in ensuring stock conservation, and we urge the board to allow additional— an additional board of fish cycle before making isolated changes to a collaborative, user-driven plan. Should changes be considered, conservation means should be shared across all users. The next several proposals recurrent for our region, including permit stacking, vessel length specifications, and discussions of general districts.

Our advisory committee seeks to provide multifaceted views in our discussions while vetting the— voting to represent not only personal views but that of our communities and stakeholders. Proposals 71 through 74 seek to establish a general district in various capacities. Our AC took action on 71 and referenced this action for the others. Our AC was unanimously opposed with no local public support voiced. Our fisheries are terminal stock fisheries, allowing for conscientious management and minimizing interception.

Proposals 75 through 79 ask for permit stacking to be legalized, in which one person could own and operate two CFVC permits. RAC unanimously opposes permit stacking, citing the increased potential of outmigration of permit ownership from the watershed. It would increase consolidation of the fleet reduce opportunity for new entrants in the fishery. The dual system as it's currently in practice allows for opportunity for local communities and young participants. Proposal 80 would allow for joint ventures in set gillnet fishing operations based on precedent allowable in Kodiak and would achieve logistical ease and measure safety or increase safety in the setnet fleet.

We were in support with a split vote, 6 to 4. With opposition stating a transporter license would already be— already allow for this. Proposal 81 would introduce a new gear type, and our AC was unanimously opposed. Proposal 82 through 91 seek to address drift vessel length specifications and definitions for modification. Our AC voted in unanimous opposition to all of these proposals.

With our discussion noted primarily under Proposal 82, we collectively discussed the regulations currently in place and feel are adequate to define the 32-vessel limit. What is needed is clear, predictable enforcement of these regulations. Noted was the ambiguity of times of enforcement. The AC discussed and agreed with BBDC's memo for enforcement, allowing for a vessel to be inspected any time a calendar year once registered in Bristol Bay. Our AC asked the board to review BBDC's RC 7 and 8, make no changes to the current regulations or existing 32-foot limit.

Please don't reward those who choose or chose to exceed the rules because they know there is no enforcement and has been no enforcement, and they know it will give them an advantage.

As an AC, we weighed in on proposals 93, 94, and 102 regarding the Togiak District and ask you— ask that you refer to our AC minutes and the Togiak AC representation to inform your decisions. We were in support of all these proposals. Proposal 95, modify early season registration requirements. We oppose this 0 to 10. And then Proposal 103, prohibit chumming.

We supported this 10 to 0. And that's all I have. Thank you. Any questions?

Appreciate your excellent report. Would you like to give your personal testimony? Yeah, I'll do my personal testimony now if I could. Feel free, Chair. Thank you.

So I'm a 4th generation, my kids are 5th generation. I fish on Ekuk Beach. I've been fishing for 49 years, seen a lot. I've seen the, the progression in our fishery here, and I just want to maybe talk about the Wood River special harvest area a little bit. And clear up maybe some misconceptions and maybe clarify some things.

So since the inception of that Wood River Special Harvest Area, we've been disenfranchised as setnetters in Ekuk because we are a land-based operation. We're about a third of the fleet of the setnets.

And we're a long ways away. We're 20+ miles away from that, from that area. So since its inception, there's been 3, maybe 4 that have dabbled with trying to go up there and fish in that thing because none of us have skiffs. There are a few skiffs in Eekuk, about 4 or 5. Most of those skiffs are— or all of those skiffs are local residents who use those skiffs for other purposes.

And the ones that we do have were, were bought into potentially— and the locals that stick behind when our market on the beach closes and we had fall fishing in depressed years, we would try to stay and fish for silver. So those skiffs were used as a means to get fish off the beach to a tender, which is difficult where we're at. You do not fish on Ekuk with skiffs because it can't be done. We can't put anchors out that that are actually— will hold, that we can manually lift by hand. I could drop a 500-pound anchor out there, but I wouldn't be able to get it back up.

So we fish the way we fish because that's the only way we can fish down there. So we have 6 generations, 5, 6 generations of investment into that opportunity down there. I've been told, hey, you have the opportunity to go up there. Yes, I do, but They're telling me I've got to reinvest into a whole different operation. I gotta— I can't take Grandma and Grandpa with me who fish on the beach.

I can't take my kids who are small on the beach because they're all fishing with me on the beach. I got to hire different crew, and now all my money that I'm making has to go to crew that's not even in my family. Right now I get to keep the money in my family. So it's a completely and utterly different fishery. Some of you were there and you saw saw it.

We don't have access to that. It's 25 miles. So in between tides, I'd have to go 25 miles. Even if I had a skiff, I had the equipment and was able to fish up there, couldn't do it with the people that I fish with down where I'm at. It would take me an hour and a half to get there, and then I'd have 6 hours off, and I'd be coming out of that, that, that region at low tide because it's 2 hours later in the river.

So if I shut down at mid-tide, by the time I come out, it's low tide, trying to get home, going 25 miles, get home, eat something, turn around, have to go back. The rest of the district, the rest of the senators are up higher in the district. They live in Dillingham. They live in Nushagak Point. They can see Dillingham.

They can see— we can't. So it's a, it's a, it's a hard thing for us. And I just wanted to One more thing. There's kings in that river. I represent the village of Aleknagek.

That river, we're at the top of that river, and I'm the rep on there. It's our opinion. We don't want any commercial fishing in there. We've wiped out that McClung king run. When we started the inception of this Wood River special harvest area, it went from 15,000 to wrap it up.

Okay. I just want you to know, and I'm here later, but there's kings in there and there's kings in the— there's Nushkat kings that go in that Wood River also. And that's just knowledge I'd like you guys to have. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Any questions? Thank you for being here and look forward to continuing the conversation in committee. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your time. Appreciate it. George Wilson.

George here.

No George. Oh, there you are. Please come forward, sir.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, members of the board, my name is Richard Wilson. George Wilson just had somebody hand me our AC information because he's got the stomach flu and he can't make it. So I'm, I'm not really prepared to, to— I mean, I could, I can botch through it right now, or we can wait until we get into committee form where me and some of the members get a chance to kind of itemize some of it. Up to you, sir. Just let me know what you want to do.

Do you want to wait for— okay, or do you want to wait for committee? Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. And I hope George feels better soon.

All right. Let's go ahead and do second calls for the folks that we missed this morning. I believe my second call list begins with Alexander Tollek-Pollock. Is he here today? Going once.

Going twice. All right. How about Mike Davis?

Hi, Mike. Good morning. Good morning, members of the board. Appreciate the opportunity to get the second chance. My name is Mike Davis for the record, and my Yup'ik friends back there said make sure you introduce your Yup'ik name as well, which is Mowayek.

And unfortunately, that translates to mud.

I really appreciated yesterday's presentation on traditional knowledge. I first started fishing actually in the Bay in 1970, and I've run a setnet operation since 1981. I'm going to limit my comments today to Proposal 60, although I echo what the comments of a previous speaker about— there is, there is kings in the Wood River, and, and this fishery does impact some of the kings that stray beyond the lower limits of this district. I'm going to limit my comments today to Proposal number 60.

One of the aspects of this increasing the fathoms from 25 to 37.5 is the fact that that's going to even more monetize the value of those frontline sites. There's already many conflicts that exist in the Wood River because it's first come, first serve. That increasing those 12.5 fathoms is going to, is going to only increase the value of getting that first site. So that's the main reason I'm opposed to that. But I also think it will narrow the amount of area that possible kings can get through.

I've caught kings up on the Wood River. As well and try to release them. But having a greater emphasis on those frontline sites will probably stop some of those kings that do manage to get up there. So the only other thing that I would say about the Wood River and increasing that fathom length is that it's only going to increase the conflicts. A number of friends of mine that fish in the Nushéak, they don't even want to go up to the Wood River because of the conflict.

They don't want to enter the battle. And this will only increase the chances of conflict. So those are my comments today. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here, and I appreciate the work you guys are doing. Thank you, Mike.

Appreciate hearing your perspective. Thank you. Any questions? Mr. Owen, thank you for your testimony. What are the size of those kings that you're catching and seeing in the Wood River?

They were small. They were small. Um, we used to catch, um, down on, on my site on Coffee Point, we— 16th of July, 17th of July, there'd be The whole net was filled with kings. There wasn't even reds in it. I mean, there was a phenomenal run up the Wood River.

And that's what we called them, the McClung kings. But those kinds of kings are not caught today. Thank you. And follow-up, how long ago would you say was that time when your whole net would be filled with kings? That was 25, 30 years ago.

We saw that. And they were, like I said, they were the end of this. They were the end of the season. The reds were almost gone. And in fact, it was all kings.

It was a king. There were almost no reds in the net. Thank you. All right. Thanks for your testimony today.

Appreciate it. Thank you very much. All right. Next on my second call list This is Dan Verhusen. Dan, make it back.

All right. Going once, going twice.

Gayla Hassett.

Michael Link.

Welcome, Michael. Thank you. My sincerest apologies for missing the earlier call by a hair. Somebody left their phone up here.

Madam Chair, members of the board, good morning. My name is Michael Link, and I'm the CEO of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation and former executive director Director of BBSRI, which is BBDC's research arm. Briefly, I wanted to add to Tony Zock's testimony yesterday that BBDC strongly supports Proposal 79.

After decades of winning and losing fish wars among users and among regions, those on the BBDC board decided in 1998 to invest in improving the management of Bristol Bay fish salmon fishery, knowing that better management With better management, everybody wins. Fish wars tended to be a zero-sum game that waxed and waned with political winds. All the work that you hear about this meeting and in previous meetings stems from the fateful decision in 1998 by our board to create BBSRI. I've been heavily involved in the science and management of Bristol Bay salmon since 1999. Three noteworthy projects that I was heavily involved in that are germane to this meeting were.

From 2001 to 2002, I led a multidisciplinary effort to examine ways to restructure the Bay salmon fishery at it during a period of its lowest value in almost 75 years. From 2012 to 2015, I led a project to quantify the economics of alternative escapement goal policies for Bristol Bay sockeye, which led to the current escapement goals. And then in November of 2018, at a Board of Fish meeting, I volunteered to lead a cross-stakeholder effort to examine ways to more rigorously improve the management of Nisqually Chinook salmon, which you've heard so much about at this meeting.

Extending the 32-foot limit will lead to a significant redistribution of income among fishery participants. Local fishermen are going to lose in the race much, and this action would erase much of the investments that BBDC has made over the last 25 years. I'd be happy to explain how this is inevitable. Regarding proposals to change the Nishikak King Salmon Management Plan, a few observations. I believe these proposals will provide little benefit, tie the hands of a robust— an already robust and effective management system, and will be done at substantial cost.

Several have testified and some on the board have said something more needs to be done. First off, lots is being done. The existing plan will continue to save far more kings than the status status quo prior to its implementation or alternatives before the board in 2018 or in any of the meetings since. Our estimates and ADF&G's estimates are really close. 15,000 To 28,000 kings are being saved by the current plan.

For perspective, had Proposal 41 been adopted in 2018 at the Board of Fish meeting, fewer kings would have been conserved than under the current plan, and the foregone harvest of sockeye salmon over the last 6 seasons would have rivaled the total annual value of salmon captured in all other fisheries around the state combined. Second, there is more we can do. First of all, we must remain vigilant in the evaluation of the effectiveness of the management plan to conserve kings. Second, we must improve the enumeration of king salmon through estimating the watershed, watershed-wide escapement independent of the seriously flawed sonar program. BBDC has committed millions of dollars to this effort.

Third, we are more— there is more we can do to improve catch counting. And we must have— finally, we must evaluate, document, and share with this board what we've learned from ongoing management under the existing plan. With this effort, we will be in excellent shape to continually improve the management of Nushagak King Salmon, and BBDC remains fully committed to this process. Over. Thank you, Michael.

Questions? Appreciate all the work that you have done in this space, and I'm glad you are here to chat with us about it as we move forward. Mr. Carpenter. Yeah, thank you, Michael. You know, one of the things you touched on is, you know, I think everybody in this room, and it's been acknowledged many times, that the way we enumerate kings on the Nuxagaki is somewhat flawed.

The projects that you are working on or that the BBDC is working on with the research institutes into trying to figure out a better way to do this, how far along in the process are you on that and, you know, what do you see as the timeline?

Through the Chair, Mr. Carpenter, well, if you count how many years we have been talking about it, really a long way along. It's been at least 10 or 15 years. But we're probably 5 years into an effort to develop methods that can allow us to truly evaluate the effectiveness of the sonar. The history has been, oh, the sonar provides a good index. We knew— and then when you say, how do we know that?

And it's like, well, that's all we have. And so we need an independent estimate. So that we can determine when it is the sonar is a good index and when it isn't. And for example, huge sockeye runs, the fraction of kings that it counts clearly is way less than when there's very few sockeye around. And so we developed weirs on some of the headwaters as kind of the precursor to a large-scale mark recapture experiment.

So we have weirs, some were tried in 2012, 2015, We reinstituted that in the last 2 years. We can count adequate number of kings and tributaries that allow us to do a mark recapture estimate, which will be able to validate or invalidate the sonar, give us either a correction factor or give managers some indication of when the sonar is working and when it's not. So if we know it doesn't work and it counts 10 or 20% of the kings when there's lots of sockeye, The manager can understand that King estimates on a huge sockeye run when we're passing 500,000 fish a day are underestimates. If there's very few sockeye around, they're not under— not nearly the underestimate. So it's that work.

But you can't do a mark recapture until you got a really good site, multiple sites in the headwaters where you can examine a large enough number of fish. And then you go into the lower river and you tag them. And this is done all the time elsewhere. And we're well into that process, probably, you know, well over halfway with the development of the tools that we've got so far. Just a quick follow-up.

I mean, I'd like to applaud your organization for all the work you do in Bristol Bay. There's an unbelievable amount of information that is derived from all the different projects you have and the different things that you fund, including the Port Moller test fishery and things like that. And so I'm very happy to know that there's something that is in the works that is going to help future boards look at this information specifically when it comes to the sonar. And when we're trying to make decisions up here about conservation problems and things like that. So anyway, thank you very much.

Question. Have you identified those weir sites? Yes. Yeah, there's one on the Upper Nushagak River. So the very headwaters of the Nushagak is spawning stock there.

And there's one on the Koktuli River, and they've been operated for 2 seasons. First year, they moved one of them in second year, but they've operated them now 2 years on one site and the current site 1 year at where it's at. So, so a lot's been learned and it's worked and we've examined a good number of kings. To, based on all the historical aerial survey data, which did operate for many, many years prior to the sonar going in, they're good index sites. We think.

Thank you. All right. Appreciate your testimony. Thank you. Last second call that I have on my list today is Samuel Rutov.

Samuel, make it.

No, Samuel. Okay. That concludes public testimony.

That's what I'm going to do. And what— right now I would like to invite Everett Anderson forward to provide a traditional knowledge report. He was unable to join us a little bit earlier, so he's going to do that right now. Welcome, Everett. Welcome back.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And board directors, and I do apologize for not being present when you called the first time. For the record, my name is Everett Anderson. My Yup'ik name given to me by my grandmother is Ikpuk, and the translation is Big Eye. And but I say that with a little bit of hesitation because I'm always conscientious about how I'm pronouncing my Yup'ik words.

So my Iłuks behind me might have a different interpretation.

I was born and raised in Dillingham, Alaska. I am a Chugach-Yung Tribal member and Fisheries Policy Director for Bristol Bay Native Corporation. BBNC is an Alaska Native regional corporation established by Congress through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. BBNC represents 31 villages across the Bristol Bay region with more than 12,000 shareholders who have ancestral ties to Southwest Alaska. Our mission is to enrich the Native way of life by responsibly stewarding the land and waters of Bristol Bay, celebrating the legacy of our people, and enhancing our shareholders' economic and cultural opportunities.

B.B.N.C. Has adopted, uh, uh, robust set of policies reflecting an unwavering commitment to protect the fish that have sustained our shareholders for thousands of years. Our approach balances fiscal, environmental, and social impacts, ensuring our region remains available for the range of uses that we value today. And that commitment brings me here to talk a little bit further about herring.

You heard some of this from the previous testimony, direct community involvement. Regardless of where I am at in the world, Bristol Bay is always home for me. The fish, the culture, that's, that's who I am regardless of where I'm at. Um, residents in Togiak and across Bristol Bay have depended on herring for longer than we have written records. My colleague, Dr. Kristin Barnett, was kind enough to share with me some research that she has conducted alongside with the Togiak Village around understanding place and positionality.

Archaeological evidence from Old Togiak Village shows continuous village occupation dating back to at least, at least 1250 AD and likely centuries before that. Excavations have recovered thousands of fish remains, mostly herring and salmon, from ancient hearths and home sites. Herring isn't a recent resource or a sideline. It is foundational to Togiak and the region as a whole. That connection continues today.

Again, great testimony from earlier. I just am here to amplify that when herring come back, residents come together. It's communal, it's community. Families harvest their own kelp, as you heard. It may be just a short, generally short amount of time, but it's super critical.

Things that we have practiced and were taught to practice, value sets that we have, giving food to our elders first, and then to families that need it, then distributed to residents who've moved away but maintain ties to home. That's me. I live down in Washington State, but I still get to engage in that connection back to my region. On a side note, my 9-year-old daughter who has relations to Petersburg, she gets her herring roe on Hemlock and salmon and black cod from her tribe, even though she lives in Washington State. It's a connection to her relations.

This is how the knowledge is passed between generations. Herring stabilizes the entire ecosystem. Again, you heard from folks talking about the importance of herring and to other important marine mammal and other species in the region. When herring thrives, salmon thrive, seals and walrus feed, seabirds survive, and the full web of species that residents depend on stays healthy. Togiak herring are currently stable.

We're seeing herring declines and other fisheries declines around the globe, around the state. But this is, this is currently a very solid fishery. But it doesn't mean to be complacent about how we handle this resource. It's— the system is fragile. We're seeing that in other fisheries, changing ocean temperatures, currents, fishing pressures, a lot of different factors creating some cumulative impacts that create the potential for uncertainty beyond subsistence.

Bristol Bay groups are exploring other new economic opportunities centered around herring. They're not distant dreams, they're being explored now. And if they succeed, they bring jobs and revenue to villages that desperately need both. But that only works if the Herring Foundation stays strong.

Residents in Togiak and across Bristol Bay cannot absorb other resource losses. And as, as other sectors or operations face their respective challenges, we need assurance that the state and/or federal management doesn't shift some of those burdens onto Herring that, that are bound for areas of the communities that rely on it for food. And other potential economic opportunities.

Stating the obvious here, but the Board of Fish has, you know, the authority to work with all user groups and has and is other agencies to ensure the biomass stays healthy and protected.

That is aligned with the state's own commitment to sustainable fisheries and to supporting Alaska Native communities. Protecting towhegak herring protects subsistence culture and economic opportunity for residents who have stewarded these waters for a very long time. And Madam Chair, with that, I just want to genuinely share with you in public how much I appreciate this process allowing the involvement of traditional knowledge into this process. We all share a resource, but the thousands of years of experience that we've had collectively in this space does necessitate a hearing by everybody, which you and the board, I genuinely appreciate making that opportunity available for those of us across the state that may not feel as comfortable coming to talk. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Everett, and you're welcome. Any other questions? Mr. Chamberlain. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Anderson, for that testimony.

I'd also like to let you know that you and I both share the same Yup'ik name. So now everyone else knows. So you made a reference to Togiak enduring other resource losses to— based on the best of your knowledge. I know, I know the Bristol Bay region is a large region and Togiak is on the upper end of it. But to the best of your knowledge, what resource losses have the people of Togiak endured in recent years or over your lifetime?

And what are the effects of those losses on the community. Thanks. Through the chair, Mr. Chamberlain, you know, again, I— because I don't live in that community but work with my, my friends and relatives, it isn't just the resources in the water, it's resources on the land. It's the movement, migration of animals that are not being able to experience the, the, um, the environment like they used to, which means those land animals are moving away further. So, um, that's some of the reference that I'm making.

To provide you with the actual volume and number, I would have to refer to, to those that are literally on the ground tracking this on a daily basis. But with the, um, with the impacts of, uh, climate change, um, it, it impacts Everything. Water temperature impacts how fish behave and, and, you know, where they go to, and, uh, you know, which brings other animals to those streams, and the list goes on and on. The ripple effect is really, really, um, unpredictable. But what we have seen, and by what others have reported, um, when you're losing birds and large game due to impacts that we can't necessarily see in real time, but over time We have to be very conscientious about how we're managing those other things, like what's going on in the water, so that we can, you know, bring some value through food use or other economic use.

Thank you. Thank you for being with us today. I appreciate it. All right, I believe that concludes public testimony. And traditional knowledge portions of the agenda.

Time is it? It's about 11:15 AM. I think what I'd like to do is take an early lunch break and then come back and begin with Committee of the Whole Group 1. And so let's see, 11:15, an hour and a half, that'd be 12:45. Let's go ahead and come back together at 12:45 and we will begin our Committee of the Whole Group 1 process.

See you all in about an hour and a half. Thank you.

All right. Welcome back, everybody. The time is 12:52. We are back on the record. I think we have 6 of 7 members in the room that I have seen eyes on.

Anyways, we are going to go ahead and begin our committee of the whole process. A little bit of information about how we do committees for those of you that aren't familiar. For committee work, we do parliamentary procedures and follow the New England town— town meeting style relatively informally. Committee meetings are intended to provide opportunities for additional information gathering and at times for dispute resolution, ideally. Committees are not a forum for debate, nor are they a platform for repeating information that's already been received through public testimony, and that means written public testimony and also the oral public testimony that was given.

Again, you can reference bits and pieces of your written public testimony if you would like, and it is considered to be new information. During board committee meetings, advisory committee representatives may express both the official positions of their committee as well as their personal views. They must, however, identify which of the two positions they're stating. The board recognizes that the AC representatives are knowledgeable fisheries leaders and believes that they must be able to function freely during committee meetings. Also during the committee meeting, the public will come forward and use the microphone near the front of the table.

This gentleman is ready to go.

If you need— if you intend to speak, please, please move towards the front of the room. You can form a line behind the speaker at the podium in order to minimize the waiting time in between comments. When you speak, please start by stating your name for the record, even if you have already done it. Earlier. So if you come up multiple times to speak, please state your name at the beginning of every time you speak.

It makes, makes keeping the record and who is doing the transcripts a lot easier and cleaner. Please don't refer to anybody in a derogatory manner. New information only. Again, don't repeat what you have already said. So don't follow my example right now.

If people start repeating the same points, the committee chair is going to move on to the next proposal. And if substitute language is being developed or if you feel it should be being developed, please speak to what you think the substitute language says or what you think it should say. And with that, I will turn it over to Committee Chairman Mr. Carpenter to lead us through Committee of the Whole Group 1. Mr. Carpenter, it's yours.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not going to reiterate what the chair has said in regards to the committee, but I will say this: we're going to move through this orderly. So people that are wanting to talk about a particular proposal, the podium's right over there. Please be standing in line if you want to talk about it. I don't want to waste all day waiting for people to walk from the back of the room.

So please take that into account. Please be respective of everybody and everybody's opinion. And please try and avoid using people's first names. If at all possible. We try and hold that kind of decorum here.

So we're going to go through the roadmap the way it was set out with the agenda, and we're going to start with Proposal 68. So if the department would read Proposal 68 into the record, please. Mr. Chairman, Tim Sands for the record. Proposal 68, 5AAC06.361, the Nushagak-Molchatna King Salmon Management Management Plan and 5AC06.391 Nishnaabeg District King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan.

Oh, excuse me. Thank you very much. Is the proposer in the room?

Would anyone like to speak in favor of this proposal? Against?

Next proposal, please.

Proposal 61. Mr. Chairman, Proposal 61, 5AAC-06391, Nushagak District King Salmon Stalker Concern Management Plan.

Proposer in the room, like to speak? Mr. Delaney, could you— could you use the mic over there, please? Thanks. Just put your name on the record. Yes, thank you.

My name is Kevin Delaney, and I'm a fishery management consultant for Kenai River Sport Fishing Association. And we're here today after very careful, years-long analysis and observation of Nushagak King Salmon management to Through Proposal 61, make the request to put additional king salmon in the Nushagak River and do it in such a way that we get high-quality escapement, essentially additional eggs in the gravel. We have benefited significantly from conversations with staff and from other stakeholders here at this meeting. And I, I guess I could say that I've gained a little bit of confidence, a little more confidence than we had in the coming here, that this is a very well-crafted plan. But we are still failing to achieve the objectives that are set out in that plan to sustain over the long term this stock of king salmon in such a manner that it can once again create the levels of yield that we have seen in the past.

We might have to get better ocean conditions. It might take some time, but we are committed to continuing to request from this board changes in that plan to put more kings in the river and assure a high-quality escapement. Our proposal 61 seeks to do this by using the two most powerful tools that are already in the plan. The first is the date that commercial fishing begins. That date in the plan could be as late as 9:00 in the morning on the 28th of June if the sockeye runs are more like historically average, or it could be— we've experienced as early as the 22nd of June in 2025 when large sockeye runs early triggered the mechanisms in the plan.

But don't forget, as a result of that planning that was passed forward to you by consensus, they said if we're not getting overrun by sockeye, we're going to wait till 9 o'clock in the morning on the 28th June. So the first most powerful tool in putting kings in the river is the date that the onset of the commercial fishery. The second most powerful tool that you got is the pulsing strategy that you employ, either through intent and EO for the staff, or prescriptively in some manner in this management plan. So you got the date that it starts, what triggers that, and then you've got a pulsing strategy that you can employ in regulation and make it somewhat prescriptive between then and say the 75% point in the run, which is about July 4th. Our proposal seeks to do both of these.

Now, I'm gonna finish up here and then get down to hear other people, but as a student of regulatory construction, having played with this stuff 40 years or so, I'm very concerned that there are things that we left in regulation that pertained directly to management of the Nushagak during this period of low king salmon abundance and with the Stock of Concern Plan basically forming the cornerstone. We didn't import the language that fully gave the department the tools to manage the sport fishery that were in the Nushagak-Molchatna King Salmon Management Plan. We didn't import the language that gives the tools the department can use to manage the inriver subsistence fishery and put them in the Stock of Concern plan. I'm a real advocate of putting everything that's going to apply during the Stock of Concern management time period in the Stock of Concern plan so people can pick up one document, it's transparent, and they know what's going on. Now, that might also apply to some things that you're going to be looking at with regard to drift gillnet, set gillnet allocation, Wood River Special Harvest Area, Home Pack.

Just my two cents worth that I think it's going to be better if we bundle it all together. I'm going to end by asking the same thing that I asked in my public testimony very quickly, and that is we've heard about the fog of war. We've heard around the sonar. We know we're dealing with enormous sockeye runs, much, much larger, with much greater economic value than we've had in the past. We know these things.

But you haven't heard these guys over here say the stock of concern designation is unwarranted. You're not hearing these guys over here say we are consistently meeting the management objective, whether it's the 55,000 SEG floor or the 95,000 in-river goal. You're not hearing anybody say that we're going to be out of the weeds anytime soon with this low abundance of king salmon. And you're not hearing them say there are no additional measures that can be taken that would hedge the bet in favor of in-river run eggs in the gravel. Thank you.

I want to thank everybody that's come up and spent time trying to help me understand this, but I think I know where we stand. So thank you very much. Yep. Thank you, Kevin. Any, any board questions?

Any questions at this time?

Next person that wants to speak. Just to reiterate, we have heard all the public testimony, so try and, you know, keep this as close to new information as you can, and that would be very appreciated. Put your name on the record, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Michael Jackson, Bristol Bay fisherman for 37 years, Alaska fisherman for 48 years. I've served on many, many, many fish boards, currently serve on a number of them, and I appreciate the efforts that you all are putting forth. It's hard work. Thank God you have comfortable chairs. I don't know about you guys, but I'm having so much fun it hurts.

So it must be hurting you too.

First off, you have the responsibility for not just this generation of fishermen, but for the future generations of fishermen. My sons fished with me from the ages of 8, and they bought their own boats at 18. And I don't expect that their sons or daughters will buy boats and fish permits, but it's, it's a generational responsibility that you have. And, and I just want to remind you of that because sometimes you get caught up in the moment. And I'm afraid that Proposal 61 is just that sort of proposal that is a short-term fix attempt to change something that needs more time to fully, fully realize its benefits.

Every single stakeholder in this room, every single stakeholder— ACC, commercial fishermen, watershed residents— everyone is opposed to 61. You've heard that. You've read that. So that's not new information, but it needs to be repeated.

Commercial fishermen have taken a big hit. We're only responsible for 10% of the exploitation of commercial fish, and those fish are donated. They're not sold. They're not monetized. We have no incentive to catch them.

So we try to release them alive whenever at all possible.

So in closing, I'd just, just like to say we have Tim Sands, we have ADF&G, we have our area biologists, we We have our science team, BBSRI. They're testifying in opposition. Why? Because they want to do their job. And they're damn good at it.

Gold standard, yeah. People from all over the world look to Alaska for leadership in fish management, particularly salmonids. So please, I ask you all to consider the weight of your responsibility for not just this generation but for future generations and allow the professionals that do this for a living, that live in the region, to make the decisions on the management. Thank you. Any questions?

Mr. Wood. Yeah, really quickly, could you just clarify what fish are donated and by who?

The king salmon caught in the commercial fishery are donated by processors. Thank you. Thank you. Um, before the next person speaks, I'm going to reiterate this one more time. There's merits to all these proposals.

I don't want to hear public testimony that was given already, and I don't want to hear anything outside of what the merits of the proposals are asking the board to do. So please focus on that as we move through these proposals. And please refrain from using people's first names at all, if at all possible. Yes, sir. Put your name on the record.

Kyle Lintz for the record. Mr. Chair, I ask for an opportunity to speak on Proposal 68. There was somebody in the seat and I was prepared to present new information and it moved very quickly. We are on a different proposal.

You could surely approach board members during a break and provide them with any comments that you would want to have, but we need to kind of stay with the agenda here.

Uh, board, Kyle Gleason, stakeholder, Bristol Bay. Um, I want to speak to this term eggs in the gravel and, uh, the unknown impact of eggs in the gravel if we are grossly over-escaping the Naknek River the way that is being suggested by this proposal, um, with sockeye eggs in the gravel. We have no idea of the impact of that consequence. Like, we don't— we have no understanding of this. So it's a pretty radical concept as far as I'm concerned, and it seems contrary to most of the biological evidence that goes into this fishery that getting that many sockeye up the river is good for the whole.

I understand conceptually it could potentially help king spawn, but I think there's a massive risk of unintended consequence there, and I'm not sure that's been spoken to directly, and I just wanted to bring that up. So thank you. Thank you. Any questions?

Next.

Board, my name is Sam Volk. I'm going to cut what I have written in half since we're worried about time here. On your website, it says the board uses biological and socioeconomic information provided by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, public comment received from people inside and outside the state, and guidance from the Alaska Department of Safety when creating regulations that are sound and enforceable. We've heard from the vast majority of voices, including indigenous people, biologists, and fishers from all user groups. Excuse me, sir, I don't mean to interrupt you, but this is not a time to read things verbatim.

This is a time to speak directly to the proposal, and I know that's what you're trying to do, but if everybody read things verbatim, we would be here for 4 days. So, all right, please try and do your best. Thank you. It sounds like everybody in this user— or in this room opposes Proposal 68 except for the Kenai River sports fishermen. So please just listen to the voices that have stake in this fishery, and thank you.

Thank you very much. Any questions? Next.

For the record, my name is Brady Boone. Just to reiterate, everyone in this room besides sport fishermen are opposed to this Proposal 61. Look at who wrote the proposal and what they represent and where they come from. There is not enough accurate data with the sonar counting or king salmon upriver to make any changes at this time. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Thank you. No questions. Next.

Dan Dunaway. A piece I left out from last— my testimony this morning was there's been questions about whether the subsistence fishery should feel the pinch as well. And I asked that question within our advisory committee, and then I tracked down the data guy in Juneau with the Department of Fish and Game subsistence. And we really kind of went through it because there was a time when I heard people in Dillingham say, "Well, I don't care what the rule is. I'm getting my 100 kings." I think people have changed that attitude, plus the fish aren't there so much.

But the subsistence reports of recent years do not show that that kind of thing is occurring. And so I wanted you to be aware that the data is there if you want to explore it further. But I decided that it wasn't really a productive angle to take as far as looking for conservation at this point. I just wanted to pass that on to you. Thank you very much.

Seeing no questions, next.

My name is Tavon Moo. I would like to reiterate what everyone else said, and also that to do a basic trend analysis on the effectiveness of King Salmon Management Plan, we'd need two life cycles. Just to start with a trend analysis, and that's 8 to 14 years, and it's been 3 years since we implemented it. It would be very premature to start, um, trying to change things without getting results back yet. I do think there's a lot of positive things that can be done in the meantime, like improving data, incorporating different methods of counting salmon and more accurate counts.

So I think there's a lot of things that can be done in the meantime. Thank you. Mr. Chamberlain has a question for you. Uh, thank you, Deb. Uh, you're, you're recommending two life cycles, but if you see, and if you look statewide, there's been a pretty rapid decline of salmon, of the king salmon throughout the state, in other rivers more rapidly than, than in Bristol Bay.

Um, do you feel it would be responsible for the board to set aside over two life cycles of decline. I think the context is a great idea, and keeping it in the frame of this is a statewide issue, and trying to address it in a single river system is very risky and takes out a lot of other impacts that could be occurring and a lot of research opportunities and better understanding. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Godfrey has a question.

Sir. Oh, sorry.

So the two life cycles premise, or that tenet, is that a biological trend analysis tenet, or what's that based on? No, that's just empirical. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Hi, good afternoon. Gaila Hossett, First Chief of Chugach Tribal Council. I just wanted to say, you know, all of us every year we have BOF PTS Steve when we're going through these life cycles. And I just want to say that with that Nishnaabegai King Salmon Management Plan, you know, that took a lot of effort to get all of the different user groups to come to agreeance. And sorry I missed my second call.

I had a family emergency that I had to deal with, but our tribe is status quo to keep that plan. But I just also wanted to say that our tribe is a recipient of the donation program of the King Salmon in the local Dillingham area. So with the donation of King's due to the fact that we're not getting as much kings on the beach in our subsistence. What our tribe does is we collect those kings and we deliver those kings salmon to the elders of our tribal members, tribal citizens in Dillingham. And also what we've done this year is that we have a big smokehouse at our tribe and we are smoking strips to hand out for our elders.

We are canning fish to hand out to our elders and we're also doing frozen pack for our elders. And just to to the fact that I testified before is that we're not getting enough to do that. Our tribe is doing that for our people, so we are recipients of that king salmon and the sharing that goes on. So thank you. Thank you very much.

Next.

For the record, my name is Frank Woods. I was up here before the, um, TEK committee and report I'm here personally to say that as a commercial fisherman, run timing is real important. And anomaly of supersized runs of 10 million up the Nushagak is real important because number one, we used to have a directed fishery for kings and there used to be an overlap between the 22nd and 25th, whereas a fisherman, commercial fishermen's gear choice Either you kept king gear on board or you switched to red gear. The only reason I know this, on the 23rd in 2014, I bought a brand new set of 6 and 3/4-inch nets where we used to fish 8-inch gear down to 7. And, uh, you know the story, it's just the size became smaller after that.

That I remember exactly when I changed it because I was fishing Igushik The run timing of kings is real important. The second thing is, as a subsistence user, I work for BB&A and we have fish leave. That fish leave is real important because there's only 1 or 2 days now where you can capture the kings running through the district in order to catch enough to eat. So there's only 1 or 2 days that as a subsistence user I can capitalize on And that's real important because if we miss it, you know, we're going to miss a whole season of— and replacing that with reds or silvers is a great alternative, which is also on your plate. But that 61 is detrimental to me as a subsistence user, number one.

Number two, the timing of everything. So thank you for allowing me to speak. Thank you. Question, Ms. Irwin. Thank you for your testimony.

So do you believe that as written, the Nushigak Management Plan will allow you more than 1 or 2 days of subsistence king fishing in the future? I hope. Thank you. Through the chair, I believe so. Ever since it became enacted, everybody's, you know, this group worked really hard and kings are on top of the forefront of everyone's agenda.

Not only at work, at home, in the community, commercial fishing, sports, on the news. That plan is destined to help us. At least the early runs used to be at the end of May, and we could count on catching kings from the end of May all the way, you know, and keep our nets out and catch what we wanted between that and the first week of June. We can no longer do that. This plan will help that.

You're absolutely correct. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

New information, that's what we're looking for. State your name, please. My name is Conrad Shawd. As noted before, the kings are declining everywhere, but slower in Bristol Bay, in particular Nushagak. So maybe we're doing something right Everybody here agrees we want to help the kings.

It's not like the gillnetters wanna keep doing and jeopardize the kings. Everybody wants to help the kings, but it's kinda ridiculous to give up so much, let 'em go upriver, and instead of putting eggs in the ground, the fish get caught with a gillnet. Sport fishing, and the mortality rate for catch and release is 20 to 40%. So that's just my point. We gave up a lot, so maybe we should stop them, uh, help the kings to put the eggs in the ground.

Thank you.

Yes, sir. Uh, Kyle Lintz. Uh, yeah, I'd like to point out a new piece of information. When I was very, very young I remember some very heated debates in my family, some conversations regarding actions taken by KRSA. And I would like to come up here and just make a character reference.

UCIDA, Upper Cook Inlet Drift Association, and Carissa had space in the same building, and Carissa wiretapped UCIDA's phone. Sir, sir. We're not going to disparage any individual or any group at this meeting. If you have a point that's in context with the language in the proposal, please speak to it. But otherwise, that's not going to happen here.

Thank you, board, for carefully considering this proposal.

Yes, sir.

Hello, my name is Franz Schoenberg and I am a commercial drift gillnetter. A new piece of information we just submitted an RC this morning, so I don't know if you guys will get it till tomorrow, but something that hasn't been mentioned yet is the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association put out an RFP this fall to improve the sonar enumeration and counting methods in Portage Creek, working with BBSRI and ADF&G. And I just don't think that you guys are aware of that. So we are aware that that's been an issue and industry has been willing to step up to try to get more information there. Thank you for that information.

That's very helpful.

Next.

Good afternoon. For the record, Miso Weber. I have information I don't think has been touched on yet in regards to the effects of this proposal. I want to draw your attention to the relationship between subsistence and commercial fisheries. As soon as our commercial fleet begins to move away because of loss of economic opportunity, they're less likely to participate in subsistence and to be part of that ecosystem and economy that supports the commercial fleet on a year-round basis.

When economic opportunity is affected, like by means of this proposal, we watch the young people move out of the region, simultaneously losing their cultural ways of being. My partner and I chose to live in his community of Dillingham versus my home community and my home port of Cordova because of the subsistence and economic opportunity. Please understand that to have one, you need the other. Thank you. Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Robert Ayano, and I served on the task force that was part of the group that put this plan together. And as I sit here and listen to the comments and whatnot, either I was way off base or the purpose of the plan was to come up with a plan that would save Kings and still provide opportunity, not only for the commercial but the sport fishing industry. And I think a real good example of that, the dates we looked at, we could have pushed it back.

We looked at what the loss to the commercial fishery— what was a really education for me because I don't understand it— the people who had the sport fish camp says if we cannot market to the course of the winter, the opportunity to take one large king, were basically shut down. And if you look at the plan, it allows for that. If the instruction was the other way, you would start that fishery with zero. So I would hope when you evaluate the effectiveness of the plan, you go and look at what the current restrictions does and what the savings of kings are. The other thing is we have an individual who resides in Dillingham that has spent 3, 4 years perfecting the use of drones, drone to catch salmon, uh, number, uh, count salmon all through private dollars.

I looked at the information he has, and to me, that's going to be the first time when he gets that perfected, we'll have an accurate count. Of King's Honest Mining Grounds. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Okay, we're going to take a couple more people here. Um, come forward and please state your name and provide some new information. Thank you. My name is Jamie O'Connor. I'm an ECOC harvester and setnetter, and I wanted to flag a few resources from some of the other hats that I wear, including some work that I do in relation to the outmigration of fisheries access from coastal communities.

And I'll do my best to be brief.

Elements of the plan were negotiated because the community cares about Chinook. We are a holistic region that our dependent on multiple species of salmon, and that's key for us. And I, I don't think you'll find anyone in this room who doesn't believe that conserving kings is important. And so I just wanted to preface that. However, I'd also like to call your attention to a few, uh, reports that could be useful in your deliberations, one being a report on the graying of the fleet, which really showcases the outmigration of young people from the industry due to a large number of factors, including uncertainty.

I would also flag the Turning of the Tide report that touches on that a little more recently, and work that occurred in Southeast Alaska, the Tide to Table report, that really showcases what happens to coastal communities when they lose their processing capacity. And their infrastructure. And unfortunately, when we're making decisions like you all have to make today, it has real impacts on what kind of infrastructure is available in coastal communities. And once a community loses their infrastructure, their access rights or their permits immediately start to leave, and those communities never get them back. We have seen that happen in other regions of the state.

And the investment and the constellation of circumstances that it will take to bring access rights back to those communities is insurmountable. So I would really recommend a review of those reports. I'm happy to provide them, and I thank you all for your work. Thank you very much.

Yes, sir.

Michael Jackson still, and I apologize for coming back up. I missed one bullet point. One conservation that the sports fishermen could do is to release or not keep any fish over 28 inches. The bigger fish have higher fecundity, and the hens in particular have— I don't know the ratio of how many eggs they have, but if they did not keep the trophy fish, we'd have more eggs in the ground gravel. If that's our goal, is to get more eggs in the gravel, then that is a tool that we could use immediately, is to not keep kings over 28 inches.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, we're going to take Jordan and then 2 more, and then we're going to move on, I believe. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Jordan Head, the executive director of the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute, for the record. Record. I wanted to come up and just ask first if anybody has any questions. We submitted, you know, 4 different reports to you, one being the effects of Proposal 61 on Nushagak District King and Sockeye salmon. I wanted to run through some of those because I don't think they've made it on the record yet.

What we did here was we looked in the department comments. They had a statement that said it would reduce King sockeye harvest by an unknown amount in their effects. And so what we set out to do was use the available data to try to quantify what that amount is. So what I did was I did a retrospective analysis looking back at the last 3 years and comparing the 2 management structures. One, the stock of concern management plan, which we, we know the fishing effort and what the harvest was.

And then two, laying over the top of that what the— what Proposal 61 seeks to do. So in RC 18, what that essentially looks like is in Appendix A, I have the hours fished per day under each different plan, and then I converted that to an effort, right, by 50 fathoms of gear fished for 1 hour in Appendix B. And what we did is we proportionally adjusted the the reported harvest between the effort under the current plan and what would be the effort under the stock of concern, or under Proposal 61 management scenario. And what we found was, you know, it is incremental but small increases in the king salmon, in king salmon conservation as a result of Proposal 61. Over the 3 years total, we'd be looking at about 3,500 kings saved from Proposal 61 above and beyond the current Stock of Concern Management Plan, which we've seen, you know, no fishing on about 50% of the king run and, you know, 10,000 to 25,000 additional kings through the district without exposure to harvest.

And but at the same time, I'd just like to bring, you know, one person did mention it, so I don't want to repeat things up here, but we currently have OEGs that are set much higher than the biological sustainable escapement goals. And by going to Proposal 61, we would look at total escapement above and beyond those SEGs of 4 million fish above the top end of the SEG goal in 2023, 5 million fish above the SEG goal in 2024, and 8 million fish over the top of the sustainable escapement goal for sockeye in 2025. And I just— I know there's a lot of debate on can we over-escape these systems? Can we have a negative impact on sockeye by over-escapement? And Bristol Bay is a tough system because it has been managed for us basically for escapement goals and MSY throughout the whole history of data collection.

But 1980 was a strike year and there was no commercial fishing, and what we saw from letting all of those fish go up the river is 6 of the 9 sockeye tributaries— sockeye rivers in Bristol Bay did not replace themselves. Themselves. In fact, you had recruits per spawners as low as 0.2 and an average 0.5 for the year. So there is an upper limit to this, and we don't really have good data looking at the department's escapement goal analysis on what that is. But we're— we've got to be cautious as we, we, we get closer to that.

That's all I wanted to say and be available for questions. Thank you. We'll go Miss Irwin and Mr. Chamberlain. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Head, for coming up for Committee of the Whole.

My question is with regards to one of your tables on RC 18, and then the other one is in public comment 32.

So that first on RC 18, you showed the estimated effects of the proposal. I'm trying to get a good idea of what this, the salmon conservation and escapement looks like whenever these things are enacted. So I'm looking at this table and then the table on page 6 of PC32. I'm just wondering if you could help me better understand the difference in those two tables and what they're, uh, what they're each telling, telling us about the additional salmon passage that could take place if, uh, if or if not this proposal were to pass. Thank you.

Absolutely. Through the Chair, Board Member Erwin.

Yes, so can I get a clarification? You said, was it Table 2 in the RC-18? RC-18 is Table 1, and then in PC-32, Table 3. Absolutely. So in PC-32, Table 3 on page 6.

This is a similar table to what the department produced in, in their presentations that they showed you. What this table looks at on page 6 is as a result of the trigger points and the delay of 3 days, 5 days, and 2 days over the last several years, how many king salmon made it— additional king salmon made it through the district during that closure period. So when we would have opened under old management, structure to when we opened under the Stock of Concern Plan. So this is the additional fish here. 8,323, 10,724, 6,525.

Those are the fish from when the, when the fishery would have opened before the Stock of Concern Plan to when the fishery opened under the Stock of Concern Plan. The extra fish that made it through the district. That's not to say all of them would have been harvested. We know we don't harvest at 100% in the district and far, far below that. However, one thing that hasn't come up in regards to these numbers and either did the department report or in this report.

This is looking at the sonar count and how many additional fish were counted at the sonar. So we've heard from the department and through reports and through much testimony that the sonar does not assess all of the kings that are getting into the river. So if— and we've heard, you know, somewhere on the order of 40 to 60% of the king run is enumerated at the sonar, and a lot of speculation about what additional sockeye are doing in the river to that count, but probably at the low end of that to be conservative. If we take those counts of, you know, 6,500 to 11,000 that made it through the district and were counted at the sonar as a result this delay in fishing of the triggers, and we put that into real numbers of fish, like what was in the district, we're looking at closer to 16,000 to 27,000 fish that made it through the district if we account for the sonar undercounting. So that's what that figure does on, on Table 6.

That is quantifying what the triggers did in the current stock of concern plan. In RC 18, this Table 1, this is looking at what additional king savings beyond the current Stock of Concern Management Plan would Proposal 61 get us if enacted in its full capacity, what they're, what they're requesting. And what we're looking at is additional king savings in the district. These are not sonar numbers. These are real fish numbers based on harvest.

Is, you know, 1,423, 290 additional fish saved in 2024, and 1,700 additional kings saved in 2025 beyond what's already been accomplished through the Stock of Concern plan. And then the corresponding trade-offs and additional sockeye escapement to these systems is what you see right below that additional sockeye. So And I can walk through how that analysis is done, but I don't think anybody wants to do that right now. That is very helpful. Thank you very much for clarifying.

I think these are important tables and data for us to be looking at. Mr. Chamberlain. Thank you, Jordan. One of the things I was looking at, you did an excellent analysis through your RCs and PCs. There is a lot of homework that you gave us to do and a lot a lot to chew on there.

One of the things I'm looking at is you're breaking down how much these would affect the passage of king salmon through the Bristol Bay, but I want to look at, you know, everyone's pointing at everything. If you were to try to affect, say, a 10% change in the number of salmon getting into, or eggs into the spawning beds, really is what we're looking at, what would you say are the most effective ways within the Bristol Bay region to increase those numbers.

I would actually, rather than taking my opinion on that, I would refer to RC5. RC5 is a questionnaire of the user group. What we did was we sent out, and Tom could actually come up and speak better to this right off the top of his head than I can, but what we did was one of the things we wanted to do in prep for this board meeting is You know, getting a bunch of public testimony all at once, not really summarized, can— is difficult for me. I'm sure it's difficult for you as well. But we wanted to do a systematic survey of the King Committee and the Bristol Bay ACs to see how— what the overall feeling in a kind of question survey way of how the current Stock of Concern Management Plan is working.

Tom, do you have a copy of that on you? So question 9 kind of gets to— the question 9 in that questionnaire kind of gets to that effect, and Tom can read the kind of results of that.

Mr. Chair, Tom Brookover. I worked with Bristol Bay Science and Research Initiative on the study team for king salmon and helped out with the performance assessment this fall. So like Jordan said, we conducted the stakeholder survey as part 2 of our assessment. Part 1 was the objective evaluation that we conducted that Jordan was just referring to.

Part 2 is we also wanted to get perspectives of the stakeholders. And we wrote a summary of the results of that questionnaire in RC5.

We have the— if you have that RC, the questionnaire itself is actually on page 9. There's a total of 9 questions that went out to both the Nushéak Advisory Committee and the King Salmon Management Plan members. We had a total of 14 responses. And Table 2 shows you the composition of the user groups that responded for both committees. We had two types of questions.

One were rating scale questions where we asked questions along two lines. What were the effectiveness of the plan and what were the effectiveness of the triggers? And asked people to rank those from a scale of 1 to 5. We also asked how well is it conserving salmon and how well are the triggers conserving salmon on a scale of 1 to 5 from not conservative to a scale of 5 costing too much opportunity or perhaps too protective. So there are two types of ranking scale questions like that.

What we found was that essentially people felt— the respondents felt that the plan itself was moderately to highly effective. And I'm going to refer to graphs that we have on page 5 that show the responses by committee.

The same question got at the management plan's conservation level and responses indicated a— what we show is a -1 to a +1 on that scale. In other words, there were some folks that felt that the plan was a little bit— could be more more conservative and there were others that felt like it leaned a little too far on the other way. But if you take them together, they were about right.

Mr. Chair, follow-up? Follow-up? Yes. So this is to Mr. Head.

I under— I appreciate pointing this out to me and bringing this in, but I— you've demonstrated a bit of professional knowledge here. And do these measures reflect your personal opinion and professional opinion at this point as far as the most effective ways to get the salmon back into the spawning beds or the eggs into the spawning beds?

I think if you, if you ask my personal opinion on this, I would point to what the data says. And the data tells us that what this current plan has done has reduced exploitation on the king stock. We've been in a period of downward trend in king salmon abundance, and we probably, as the department stated, we could have completely shut down this entire fishery and not met escapement goals. So what, what does success look like when we're in a stock of concern? You know, what is a stock of concern plan?

When is that? What is success under that? Is it meeting those recovery goals right now as soon as the plan goes in, or is it instituting, you know, a sustainable framework that's going to allow for— to reduce exploitation as much as we can on these stocks without completely upending the entire fishery ecosystem of sport, commercial, and subsistence? And so when I look at— when I look at this plan, I see a sustainably created plan that is doing a good job of reducing exploitation on the stock sharing that burden across user groups and ensuring that we're not driving this farther down. And that's why I think you hear a lot of testimony on we really don't know.

And this plan has been in place for 3 years. The fish that have been conserved under this plan in 2023 went to the ocean this summer. We haven't seen any returns from it. So I feel it's hard to evaluate that without gaining additional data. But what I do see from this plan has made dramatic steps forward when it comes to king salmon conservation, and everybody came to the table to give something up to get there.

I guess that would be my personal professional opinion. Thank you. Nothing. Okay, I don't see any other questions. Appreciate it.

Yes, sorry, one more thing that came out of this, that came up at this board meeting during the committee process when the stock of Concern Plan was developed. The intent of this plan was to operate in tandem with the King Salmon Management Plan. That's the way the plan was written by the committee and presented to the board. And it was meant to be additive to the current plan, not replace it and supersede it completely, and only list in it tools that were more conservative than the current King Plan. So things I heard comments about there's a bunch of stuff in the plan that doesn't apply as far as subsistence and as far as, you know, the 55,000 catch and release trigger and these things.

The intent in the committee notes show that that was not— when this plan was being constructed during the committee process, that was not the intent. The stock of concern plan was to be additive tools during the stock of concern so that you could leave the normal long-term management plan intact and they could work in tandem and only supersede when there was more restrictive measures put in place. But I would be happy to discuss that later. Ms. Carlson-Endort. Thanks.

So if that is the case, then a lot of this comment that I have heard about this is collaborative and da-da-da-da-da, I mean, it seems like there is perhaps a wholesale misunderstanding of how this plan was going to be used. When it was developed.

I don't— through the Chair, Member VanDort, I don't see that as the general opinion in the broader audience. I see that as an interpretation that is being made right now. By me? Not by you. Okay.

I am curious. I don't think by you. We heard discussion about in the staff presentations on, you know, we didn't restrict, that's outside of the plan. But the intent and how, like, when we walked out of this meeting, the general consensus, I believe, was that these plans work in tandem because it's a very short plan with only 3, you know, 3 or 4 measures in it. It's not a complete management plan meant to operate by itself.

Otherwise, when the plan was being constructed by the committee, there was discussion about this. Should we move the 55,000 catch and release into the stock of concern plan? They say— and they said no, let's— like, that should be in the normal management plan, not this additional tools. Um, and also, just as a reminder, that regulation was also softened at the time during the committee process because it was a close the sport fishery when it's 55,000 projection or less. And that was softened, softened because one of the measures of success was that a consistently open fishery so that it can— so that, so that lodges can advertise and they have a predictable season.

They don't have clients coming in and then it's closed. So that was softened, stayed in the normal King Plan, and things like that weren't brought over to the new plan because it was seen as a supplementary plan to add more restrictive measures Deering stock of concern. So I just wanted to get that out on the record as well. Thank you. That is very important context to this conversation.

Appreciate it.

Okay, thank you, Jordan, for all, all the information you provided. Appreciate it. So we've heard a lot. There's 3 people standing in line. If you have something new to say, come on up, but if you don't, we're going to move on.

And I'm going to stop you.

My name is Kirill Basargin. I'm here for the community of our Alaska. I haven't had everything to say in the public testimony. This is concerning Proposal 61, prohibitive fishing of king salmon for the sport fishermen. I— we agree to shut down the sport fishery due to king salmon is an all-world concern.

As the world's largest salmon fishery, we have to look at sectors in order. Subsistence is number one fishery. We heard it from many communities. We have problems in the Kuskokwim, we have problems in the Cordova area, Prince William Sound. Our Bristol Bay fish area has the biggest, largest fishery in the world.

We need to sustain it. If we don't look at the local community, the natives, the Alaskan communities that thrive on our fishery— king salmon is depleting out of our freezers. There was a lady here, Hartfeldt, you guys heard her. Their smokehouses are getting depleted. They can't even feed their family.

And they're— in the wintertime, they have sled dogs that they still to this day go to sport fish on the ice with traditional manners. You guys have to look at that. Then it goes down to set net and drift. The sport sector is the highest paid ranking revenue in the world. In Alaska, trawl and sport fishing Sport fish are the highest revenue-generating income producers.

Sir, could you please speak to the proposal directly? Yes, I'm going to get to that. To— before you guys look at shutting down the drift fleet or the sport, you guys need to look at the trawl fleet. I've been advocating for the trawl fleet for the communities for many years. They fish in the Bristol Bay Area District.

It's very shallow. They say they're mid-trawling. That's a lie. Sir, we have this— Sir, yes, excuse me, understand this is not being— this is not directed at the proposal. I'm sorry.

And so unless you can address the proposal specifically, I'm going to have to move on to the next person.

Okay, come on next. We got 2 left.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Tony's Hawk. For the record, I'll keep it really quick. Proposal 61, it makes me worried about the young people in my community of Dillingham.

Permanent outmigration is a big problem, and I'm worried that 61 passes, that, you know, not every young person has a father or grandfather or an uncle or a friend's dad they can hop on a boat with. And in fact, most don't. And I'm just worried if this passes, there'll be more outmigration of permits from my community. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Tony. Ms. Carlson. Or, or a friend's mom or aunt or sister. Right. Thank you.

Thanks. Okay. One final comment from Mr. Delaney.

Mr. Chairman, Kevin Delaney, Kenai River Sport Fishing Association. Two quick things. Jordan and I have been talking throughout this entire meeting, and I've learned a lot from him. When he portrayed— I didn't portray— he estimated the number of additional fish that would be entering the river as a result of 61 over the existing Stock of Concern Management Plan.

I just want you to make sure you— we have two pieces to that, to our proposal. One is a retarding of the opening date of the commercial fishery. The other is a pulsing strategy of 12 hours a day from the time it opens until July 4th. I just conferred with Jordan and his estimate does include both of those. But I want to make sure that, that you guys realize that there's two pieces to our strategy.

And in conclusion, Real quick. Success. What does success look like here? You've had, I think, a really complete and kind of eloquent description of what success looked like to the committee that presented their plan to you and you adopted it 3 years ago. And I— it's now up to you to determine if success still looks like that or if it looks like hedging the bet a little bit more in favor of the Chinook.

And I thank you all for your time. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay, we're going to move on. Proposal 69, please.

Proposal 69, 5AAC-06.391, Nushagak District King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan. Thank you.

Proposer?

Yeah, Madam Chair, Miss— I'll make this real quick. You're going to get tired of hearing me otherwise. So Proposal 69 asks to have the recovery goal that was established in the Stocka Concern Management Plan. I think it's like 3 out of 5 years meeting at least the bottom end of the SEG. But that's the conditions that have to be met before the Stock of Concern Management Plan is rescinded.

Now, as we go around the state, we've got a number of different Stock of Concern Management Plans. And one of the things we've been doing as we go around the state and participate in those discussions is we would like to see the recovery goal adopted as part of the Stock of Concern Management Plan, simply for transparency's sake and for public awareness of really what we're up against to rescind that plan. And so we're arguing for regulatory consistency. There's nothing about this that's allocative or, you know, additional restriction. It's just simply transparency and regulatory consistency.

Thank you. Appreciate that.

Anyone else like to speak on Proposal 69?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jordan Head with the Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute. I wanted to discuss when this stock of concern plan was passed at the 2023 statewide Board of Fish meeting. There was a little confusion towards the end, and there were several amendments made to RC 53, which was the language that ended up being in the plan.

And I won't speak for board intent, but I went back and listened to the entire record multiple times, and what I heard was there was, there was recovery language in that RC53, but it only said 3 consecutive years. The state's action plan had a more robust language in it, and there was an amendment to put that into RC 53, and then that RC passed 6 votes to 0. So it's my understanding— I've been working with the department to try to figure out what happened here, but my understanding, looking at the board record, that this Proposal 69 was already passed by the board in 2023. And that's all I have. Thank you for bringing that to our attention.

Anyone else like to speak on this proposal? Proposal 62. Proposal 62, 5AAC-06.391, Nishikagak District King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan. Thank you. Was the proposer in the room?

Yes, sir.

Push the mic and state your name, please. For the record, my name is Kent Anderson, owner of Alaska Salmon Camp. I'm going to make this very brief because the wording on 62 is so similar to 61 that was just discussed in length, with the only terminology being the exception being a minimum of 55,000 passing the Portage Creek sonar counter. That's the only difference in the two, and given there has been plenty of discussion, I'll not pursue any further besides what has already been said. Thank you.

Appreciate the brevity. Any questions? I don't see any questions. Is there anyone else who would like to speak to this proposal?

Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Fritz Johnson, Dillingham Drift Fishermen. Inasmuch as we've had, you know, considerable testimony saying that the Portage Creek sonar is basically ineffective for various reasons, particularly when a lot of sockeye You're not going to get— let's just say that there have been years in the past when there have been a lot of sockeye that even if the commercial fleet had not fished, we wouldn't have reached that 55,000 goal.

And inasmuch as the sonar systems are flawed, there is work afoot to replace them with something that may work better, but we don't have that yet. We are pursuing that through the, you know, RSDA, the marketing association. But this isn't going to work, you know, particularly if this— the fish aren't counted effectively. So thank you. Thank you, sir.

Anyone else? Okay, next proposal please. Proposal 64. Proposal 64, 5AAC 06.358, Wood River Sockeye Salmon Special Harvest Area Management Plan. And 5AAC 06.391, Nishnaabeg District King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan.

Thank you. Is the proposer in the room?

Would anyone like to speak to Proposal 64?

Seeing none. Come on up to the front, folks, if you want to talk.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just— state your name, please. Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry.

My name is Travis Paul, fisherman, Nishnaabeg. Just like to remind the board, potentially the ones that weren't here at the last board cycle. So we're all in a conservation mode here. And the department, within their, their action plan that they presented to the board, they had criteria listed in support of— in sport, subsistence, and commercial. And they gave you guys points to pick from to try to make up a plan for, for this.

One of those points in subsistence was closing the Wood River up to Red Bluff. And the reason being is because local people, all of us know that there's the potential and it does happen. And we have subsistence fishing in the lower part of the river for king salmon. So Nushkeg, those rivers are very close. We have leak-off king salmon that go into the Wood River and then back out.

So I would err on the side of caution here. I think any early Wood River fishing is, is going against the conservation effort that we're trying to do here with the kings. We need to be really careful. I'm a little concerned with the trigger for going into the wood is set based on our, our old escapement goals. Which now because of our OEGs puts us in there even earlier.

So something to think about when we look at this proposal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sir. Anyone else?

State your name, please.

Yes, Tom Rollman, Nushagak Setnet. I just want to follow up on some numbers. Table 58-1 I got from, from, from Tim here talking about actual king numbers in the Wood River Special Harvest Area. They are very negligible. Over the last 3 years, '23, '24, and '25, there was an average of 500,000 sockeye that were caught in the Wood River Special Harvest Area.

And during that time, 2023, there were 22 kings caught. 2024, There were 48 kings caught. Kings caught, and in 2025 there were 133. So if you do the math, it's like 2.3 ten-thousandths of a percent or something. It is a very, very negligible number.

So I just like to point that out, that we're definitely not catching, catching kings in there. So thank you. Appreciate it.

Okay, seeing nobody else, let's move to the next proposal, please. Proposal 65. 5AAC 06.391, Nushagak District King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan, and 5AAC 06.367, Nushagak District Commercial Set and Drift Gillnet Sockeye Salmon Fisheries Management and Allocation Plan. Thank you. Is the proposer in the room?

Yes, sir. State your name, please. Nicholas Dowey. Madam Chair, members of the board, I'll speak on behalf of this proposal. I think hopefully everyone is very well versed in the situation with SetNet and the allocation, especially concerning ECAC.

I think we've done a very good job trying to inform everyone here and all the members.

Yeah, we're just— we're definitely looking for any kind of relief that we can get. Whether that's, you know, board direction to management or however this needs to proceed. You guys are very, very, very well known for the problem— are known about the problem, and we're very flexible, and we've laid out several different things that could be considered and could provide some relief, and that's what we're looking for. So thank you very much. Thank you.

Any questions? Seeing none. Yes, sir. Next person want to speak?

Tim Mickelson. I'm a drift fisherman in Bristol Bay.

Some of this, I guess I would like the board to know, part or a large reason the Ekuk fishermen are not getting fish on their site for the last few years. For whatever reason, the fish have just been on the west side. The normal pattern is for fish to come in across Flounder Flat and hit Ekuk. And that has been— I mean, for the years that I've fished here, those have been the best sites to have. The last 3 years, I mean, I built my boat to fish on that side of the thing.

The last 3 years I've fished on the west side. Because that is where the fish are. I don't know how the board could possibly, you know, change where the fish come in or the way the wind is going to blow, you know. But that, that is a big reason that they're not getting fish there. And this stock of concern is also hurting them a little bit because they don't get their early fishing.

But It's a significant thing that the fish, the big run, you will probably push back over there. But my heart goes out to them. But the wind and the tides are what's taken the majority of the fish out of their section. Thank you, sir.

Okay.

Couple more. Yes, sir. I want to speak to the fact that the— your name, please. Kyle Gleason, stakeholder, Bristol Bay. The ECUC stakeholders or the ECUC setnetters don't have skiffs.

I think they can buy them and there's a whole Wood River setnet area that's accessible. I know we have to innovate and do what we can to survive in this thing. Just wanted to speak to that quickly. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Yes, Robert Ayano. And in the 2025 Bristol Bay salmon season summary, I think there's some confusion on when you manage for allocation and you manage for escapement. When the regulation was first put in place, there was actually a sentence that defined it. Escapement is a priority, and in this Report, it says that secondary to escapement.

So it seems like when we have that king salmon stock of concern, we're managing for escapement. And I, I would hope the boat board would further define that. All the Memming River fisheries are because we're trying to control escapement. In my opinion, allocation shouldn't apply. Thank you.

Thank you, Robert. You have a comment, sir, on this one?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had one more thing. Name, please. I'm sorry.

Travis Ball. Thank you for the time. I had one— I had an example in my testimony that I didn't get out, and I just think that would help you understand a little bit better. Of our— what we're dealing with since this inception. So if we've got two-thirds of the fleet of jet boats or jet boats and one-third of the fleet are props, and we give a Wood River fishery opening for the, for the fleet of boats, but you can't get up there without a jet boat, that leaves a third of the fleet of the drift boats.

Are of their props that don't get to fish in there. But hey, they can invest and buy a jet boat. You can still keep your, keep your prop boat, but let's buy a jet boat so that you actually have access to that Wood River.

And by the way, when that two-thirds of the fleet goes into the Wood River, we're going to take that allocation from that two-thirds, and we're going to lump it— excuse me, we're going to lump it all on the whole allocation of the fleet. So that's kind of what we're dealing with in ECUC. And I just wanted that example. Everyone says, hey, buy a skiff. You're asking me to reinvest in a fishery that I might or might not do, or might or might not have to go up in there, that I might and might not use.

It would be the same thing versus a jet and a prop. If you couldn't get up there in a prop, but they open it up, these two-thirds get access. You got to buy a jet boat if you want access.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, let's move on to the next proposal, please. 63.

Mr. Chair, for the record, Lee Borden. Proposal 63, 5AAC06.391, Nushagak District King Salmon Stalker Concern Management Plan. Mr. Chair, thank you.

Is the proposer in the room?

You want to speak, get in line.

John O'Connor, co-proposer of 63. As I stated in my testimony, if you're going to open king management plan. I'd like you to consider this. If you're not going to address 61 and 62, then don't, don't take the time to look at this one. Table it.

Thank you. Thank you for the clarity. Anyone else?

Mr. Chair, Kevin Delaney, Kenai River Sport Fishing. If this isn't the time, just let me know, but part of 61 also addresses the sport fishery, and if you'd like to hear the additional comment that I have right now, that's fine, or— Yeah, I think, Mr. Delaney, I think that was pretty clear in the proposal, so I think for right now we'll probably just move on. Okay.

And I would just ask folks to read the two at Let's put them side by side. They're different. Okay. Appreciate that. Okay, let's take one more proposal and then we're going to take a little short break.

So Proposal 66.

Mr. Chair, Proposal 66, 5AAC06.391, Nushagak District King Salmon Stock of Concern Management Plan. Mr. Chair, thank you. Proposer in the room.

Would anyone like to speak to Proposal 66? [Speaker:KENT ANDERSON] Kent Anderson, Alaska Salmon Camp. I believe earlier the person who submitted the proposal tabled it off for consideration. Just bringing that back to the attention.

But if not, my comments would be that that as a user of the river and the restrictions that are already implemented on us on catch, further restricting us, and which greatly affects the customer satisfaction of sport fishermen— obviously they're more satisfied when they're catching fish, and we're already releasing more fish than we're catching. And being able to do it in any manner possible is what I would support. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Yes, ma'am.

Nancy Morris Lyon with Bear Trail Lodge and Branch River in Bristol Bay. Just wanted to point out that these tools are already in the toolbox of Fish and Game to use as, as things progress in the development of the management plan. I was also a member of the King Salmon Management Plan, Stock of Concern group that worked on that. So thank you. Appreciate that.

Okay. I don't see anyone else. So it's 2:07. Let's come back on the record at 2:25.

Okay. Thank you, everybody. We're back on the record at 2:27. We're going to continue on with Committee of the Whole Group 1. We left off with Proposal 67.

So if you would read that into the record, please.

Mr. Chair, Proposal 67, 5AAC67.022.

Special provisions for seasons, bag possession, and size limits, and methods and means in Bristol Bay area. Mr. Chair, thank you. As the proposer in the room, would anyone like to speak to Proposal 67? Okay, let's move on to Proposal 44, please.

Mr. Chair, Tim Sands for the record. Proposal 44, 5AAC01.XXX, a new section, and 5 AAC 06.377 reporting requirements. Thank you. Is the proposer in the room?

Would anyone like to speak to Proposal 44?

Hey, Shaleen, is that done?

Apologize to that. I was the author when you— oh, that's okay. Go ahead, go ahead. Can't— Anderson. Alaska salmon camp.

As I stated earlier, I'm not going to repeat what I said regarding the intent of the proposal was to add a possible king conservation tool to the district biologists. That's still my position on it. And there was no intent to limit or eliminate subsistence fishing from the the residents. Thank you, sir. You have a question, Miss Carlson?

Oh, okay. Uh, no question, sorry. Uh, next.

Yeah, John Fries Mickelson. I'm a drifter fisherman in the Nushagak. It seemed like there was some confusion on, um, earlier when this was discussed, uh, about, uh, uh, personal use, um, King salmon retain is home pack in the commercial fishery. Most home pack is taken at the end of the season typically. There's essentially zero directed personal use for the king salmon.

As it's been mentioned before, most commercial fishermen, all that— everyone that I know said they release live kings that we catch. And given the gear restrictions, there's zero directed king salmon fishery. Okay, thank you. Ms. Carlson-McDowell has a question. Hey, thanks.

So I'm trying to picture what a king looks like when it's been sitting in a gillnet, snagged up and coming through a drum. What are they? What is the— let's talk about the mortality for that. Sure. Oh, I'm, you know, it's not good for any fish to get caught in a gillnet.

That's for sure. I think oftentimes the kings, when they hit red gear, they— if they're big kings, they'll blow through. And, you know, back in the day especially when we were switching over from king season to red season, you'd see just these giant holes in your net that the large kings would just blow through the smaller red gear. Oftentimes, the kings will just get rolled up. Caught in the gear.

They won't get gilled, especially if they're— it's red gear, they don't— they can't get gilled. So they'll kind of get rolled up in the net. So sometimes you can roll them out, and sometimes they come over and they're flopping around, they're lively, you can toss them back into the water and see them swim away. I'm sure there's certainly some mortality associated with that, just like there is with catch and release sport fishing, but we certainly try to give them give them the best chance and let them go. And I know in other fisheries they have, you know, recovery boxes and things that they try to use to increase the survivability.

And, you know, that's something that I think we as commercial fishermen are, you know, supportive of, generally speaking. That's good to hear. I just wanted to let everybody know that I have asked the department to work on some substitute language for this proposal. It's not quite ready yet, but look for it hopefully this afternoon or this evening that contemplates how to deal with home pack and subsistence. So I don't want to, you know, I won't take the time to get into it too much, but right now, but I just wanted to let folks know to keep an eye open for that because I have some, some language that I am considering and might put it out there just for people to give me some feedback on.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you, sir, for being here. Anyone else?

Oh, go ahead, Matt. Matt Marinkovich. I'm a drift netter. And I guess the thing I want to touch on is if you buy a sport fishing license, you have access to fish through that license. You have a subsistence license, you have access to your home fish through that license, and through a commercial license, that's our aspect, or that's our access to the resource to take home.

And I, I'm trying to think how you could do it if you had to run it through a fish ticket and then have get the fish from your processor or whatever. I know this is about, uh, limiting king salmon retention. Uh, it's kind of confusing to me because, I mean, as gillnet harvesters, you catch the fish and they're— unless there's the exception, as was just discussed, for the most part, they're going to be not swimming back again. So, and if the fisherman wants to take a king salmon home, I mean, I know for certain— well, I can speculate with certainty that there is nobody collecting a whole bunch of king salmon and trying to get something beyond just king salmon for the winter if they want to take some fish home. So I guess that's just all I want to say.

Is it? It's a— that's it. Okay, thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, I don't see anybody else.

Let's go to proposal 58. Proposal 58, 5AAC 06.358, Wood River Sockeye Salmon Special Harvest Area Management Plan. It's a proposer in the room.

Would anyone like to speak to Proposal 58?

Proposal 59, please.

Proposal 59, 5AAC 06.358, the Wood River Sockeye Salmon Special Harvest Area Management Plan and 5AAC 06.367 Nishigak District Commercial Set and Drift Gillnet Sockeye Salmon Fisheries Management and Allocation Plan.

Thank you. Is the proposer in the room? Would anyone like to speak to this proposal? Proposal 60, please. Proposal 60, 5AAC 06.367 58 Wood River sockeye salmon special harvest area management plan.

Thank you. Is the proposer in the room? If you want to speak to this, get in line. Yes, thank you. I put this proposal in because— Your name?

I'm sorry, Tom Rollman, Nushagak. I submitted this proposal. I was encouraged to just bring the Wood River special harvest area in line with the other special harvest areas in the bay. That are all using— setnetters are allowed to use 37.5 fathoms. We're only allowed 25.

I know there's been some opposition to this and for various reasons. So it was just a matter of, like I said, bringing it into line with the rest of the bay. Thank you.

Next.

Fritz Johnson, Drifter. [Speaker] I don't set net up there, but I have talked to a lot of the people in our community who have found that fishery to be beyond competitive. The early sites, the first sites in the district boundary are coveted by, well, coveted by everybody, I guess, because that's where the fish come in and that's where the big catches seem to be. And the anecdotal information I can offer is that that's often contentious to the point of gunplay, not shots fired, but people waving firearms to get that first spot in line. If those first sites are, you know, are prosecuted by longer gear, that makes that effect, you know, exaggerates that effect more.

More. I can't speak to the— well, I just say I would be cautious about doing this. It seems a shame that the biggest bully can get the first site, and giving that— getting that first site with more gear would disadvantage those upstream from him. That's all I got. Thank you.

Thank you, Fritz. Anyone else?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Tony Zock, BBDC. Um, and full disclosure, I'm also a Wood River setnetter. BBDC is opposed to this proposal.

We think it has the chance that it could create more disparity among the folks that have smaller vessels and smaller operations and just one skiff and one permit versus the folks that have multiple boats that are bigger and can handle setting out a bigger net in the Wood River. The tide is very swift. Um, is this— may, if it were to pass, the smaller operations might have to buy bigger anchors to be able to even hold a 37.5-foot net. And I don't want to repeat things, but it would really benefit the folks up upfront in the line sites, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Tony. Question from Ms. Carlson. Thanks, Tony. I don't know if this is a question you can answer. I just kind of thought of it and here you are standing here.

How does the Wood River SHA compare size-wise to some of the other SHAs in Bristol Bay?

Madam Chair, I'm sorry, I haven't fished in any of the other special harvest areas, so I really don't think I can speak to that accurately. No problem. Thank you.

Push the button and state your name, please. Harrington Basarjan. Yeah, I would oppose on that one, increasing the lengths of the nets in the Wood River. I mean, they already have the laws. I mean, why would you want to cover the rivers.

It's a wood river. It's a long length. They're already catching plenty of fish. Where, where do you think the fish goes? In the river.

They have enough fish coming in. They don't need to extend their nets and go beyond that point. That's all I got. Thank you.

State your name, please. Thanks for the reminder. Travis Ball. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just a little food for thought with the Wood River allocation tied to the main district allocation. You might have some potential redistribution of the allocation within a gear group if you give them more gear on this one. Just wanted to say that. Thank you.

Anyone else?

State your name, please.

Push the button. Kiril Basargin. On the Wood River, with the king salmon stock being less here, if the drifters get shut down and pushed into the Wood River, this extension of the setnetters would be a huge conflict. As I've many fished in the Wood River, and it, it's very narrow, and on low tide, there's— if you— the, the, the slopes are steep. So if a boat gets stuck, you're gonna pretty much lying on the shoreline like that, and I experienced that a few times.

So consider that into considerations because before letting the settlers. Thank you.

Yeah, my name is Mike Davis, and I mentioned in my testimony that you will definitely monetize those first several sites or more in the Wood River if this passes. And I can speak to having one of my signs be replaced by someone else's with a shotgun leaning against it. So it can be a very contentious place to fish. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Okay, we're going to take 2 more here and then we're going to move on.

Tom Rollman again, Nishigak. I just want to follow up on something that was said earlier. The rules have been changed there in the wood to where there aren't setnet and drift fishery that go on at the same time there anymore. There are no conflicts with that regard. Just, just so the board knows that.

Thank you. Thank you. Question for you. Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to clarify.

So while they're not actively fishing at the same time, are the setnets still in the water whenever drift boats are able to go up? No, we're required to pull our gear. Between openings. So there's no anchors, no lines or anything in the water. Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

Yes, sir.

Tim Mickelson, Drift Fisherman. The size of the Wood River is— it's 0.7 miles wide and it's split in the middle by an island. So you have about a quarter mile width on each side. Which is much smaller. If you take the Naknek River, it's a full mile wide and there's no separation in the middle.

So you have two small slots and most of the fish come through one bank of the Wood River. Just for your information. Appreciate that. Okay, we're going to move on. Proposal 56, please.

Proposal 56, 5AAC06. 3.331, Gillnet specifications and operations. Thank you. The proposer here, state your name, please. John O'Connor, I'm one of the proposers.

Stosh Anderson. The two of us were before you 3 years ago recommending the adoption of the language of this proposal, and at this time, John and I recommend that you delete the sunset clause, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I concur with Stott. Okay.

Thank you very much. Is there any other comments on Proposal 56? Proposal 57, please. Proposal 57, 5AAC-06.331, Gillnet Specifications and Operations. Yes, ma'am.

State your name, please. Christine O'Connor. I'm one of the 27 co-proposals. Of this Proposal 57. There's an extensive record for this meeting, and I thank you for reading the comments and listening to our testimony.

Proposal 57 proposes a very simple solution to an escalating problem that we are having with gear conflict, which is not only destroying our gear but interfering with our opportunity to pursue our harvest. It's very simple. It separates the gear types so you don't have destruction and hazardous consequences. It is simple and it's also enforceable, which the current regulations really are not. It has to be a very specific circumstance to address this problem.

So again, thank you for the opportunity to bring this problem to the board. And there's about a dozen of us here. If you have any questions, just give us a shout. Thank you. Thank you.

I don't see any questions right now. Is there anyone else like to speak to this?

State your name for the record, push the button. Good evening, board and members. I oppose proposal due to the fact that sometimes we have very strong winds from the west. It pushes the fish all the way towards the shoreline. And if we— this proposal would hurt us because we wouldn't even get a chance to to fish, get the fish at all.

And this wind sometimes it blows around a week or even more or longer. So we won't even get a chance to get on the beach or closer. And I feel for the setnet fishermen, you know, but out of my 27 years in the Bay, I never had any contact issues with the SITNET. Thank you. Could you state your name for the record?

Sorry, Phil Basargian. Okay, appreciate, appreciate your comments. Next. Oh, excuse me, sir. I think we have a question for Mr.

Svenson.

So if the wind is blowing that hard, don't you have a choice of staying out of there? Well, if we stay out of there, then we won't be able to to pay our bills.

Well, what about the set— well, I'm not going to get into that, but I just think that, you know, you have a choice. Well, a better explanation is when the wind is blowing from the west and we have all these set nets in line along the shoreline and they're all full, I mean maximum, you won't even be able to see the web sometimes. That's how full they are. And the fish just starts going around them from the outside and it's right along the set nets. I mean, I don't go closer than what the law requires, but it's right there.

If we go further out and we have a line that will affect our fishery in a big way.

Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Next. William Cronchie, a drift fisherman. I have sympathy for the setnetters. As a setnetter of 10 years, I understand the conflict of gear, but this proposal would create, to my understanding, an exclusive setnet zone. And by the wording, I believe it would be illegal for any drift boat to even enter this area.

Certainly not with a net. There's a lot of scenarios where there might not be set nets, whether they be on limit— biologists give a, a drift-only opening, open the drift nets before the set nets. So with this proposal, um, we're talking about a very productive section of beach here, and, um, in this proposal it would no longer be legal for a drift netter to go in this area and harvest where currently they are legal to do so. And if the setnetters are there, there's very specific regulations now that specify how far the drift gear needs to be from the vessels or from the setnet. So, for example, another issue could be at the end of the season, maybe there's a lot of setnets that are no longer participating, have packed up their operation and have now gone home.

I might bring my vessel to a beach and there's no one in sight, there's no setnets around anymore, and I would be looking at my chart and saying, I'm restricted from fishing this area because of this proposal. So that's my comments on that. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Hareton Basarjan. Well, I would say this would really affect us drift boats, because that makes us fish in a box. We already have the West Line, Snake River, South Line, North Line, and then the East Side. Imagine, then we're going to have another line.

We're going to be fishing in a box. There's going to be war. Another line, another money-making for the troopers. Well, that's their job, of course, but why do we need a line We already have the laws. Why aren't they there?

There's people ruining their gear, blah, blah, blah. That's their job. They should come in, do what they need to do to the person that did that to them. Done deal. The rest, the next thing is, there's, there's times I've been 1,000 feet away from them, maybe 0.1 mile, you didn't It's shallow there on the schooner side on the south.

I ripped plenty of my nets because they lose anchors, whatever. But of course, the current's not going to stay put. It drags anchors all over the place. It's a sandbar. And I ripped one year, two sets of full gear, three shackles, all gone.

Done. But that's all I have to say. [Speaker:JOHN MERRILL] OK, thank you. So I have a feeling we're going to hear a lot of the same stuff the way this is going. So try and focus on new information, please.

Yes, sir. Thank you. I was part of this group on the drift thing when we agreed to put the lines in by GPS coordinates. There was no mention of turning it into an exclusive set-net-only area. There, especially on the lower end, huge areas where there isn't any set nets.

If so, to preclude the drifters from going in there, I don't think is correct or right. It doesn't address the problem that you heard earlier today about gear conflicts. The, uh, proposal, the amended proposal that the Nushigak AC does add some strength to it, but if there's no enforcement there, it isn't going to help. But to exclude the drift boats, I think, is a step too far. I know this area very good.

When the tide's coming in on the upper end, you better be on the outside edge towing on your net, because if you're not, you're going in the set nets. And the way we did it before, we would just keep our buoy out of their buoy rather than where that line is. So this could lead into large unintentional tickets if that buoy is inside the line for whatever reason. So that, that's the marker that we all used, and I've never tangled with a setnet. So thank you.

Thank you, Robert.

Next.

Tony Zock, BBDC, for the record. BBEDC supported this as amended by the Nushagak AC. I don't have that language in front of me, but essentially the intent was to allow the drifters to still enter that area but have no setnet— come in contact with no setnet gear whatsoever, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Tony. Next. Oh, you have a question, Tony? Oh, okay. I don't have a question.

For you specifically, Tony, but I guess if somebody can come up and tell— or on the side tell us where that amended language is. Do you know where that's at? Is it in the AC report? Where is the— is it RC'd? Do you know if it's been RC'd?

Through the chair, I'm not sure if it's been RC'd, but I do believe it is in the new SEGAC AC meeting minutes. I would highly suggest it's RC'd if it It hasn't been. Thank you. Thanks. But I will look.

I am behind on my RCs. I just want to mention it should be under the AC comments tab in your RC1 binder. Okay. I would still recommend it being RC'd. I will find the AC number for you.

Yeah. I would still recommend it being RC'd, please. Thanks.

Yes, ma'am. I am Shannon Ward. I am a set netter in South Nacnic Beach. I would just like to reference again for the board the history of the set-net fishery. It was set aside specifically so that those who might not be able to access the then drift fishery would have a way to fish.

Locals, women, children, wounded. This was created for them so that they would have a place to fish. And I and many others like me are continuing this. We have children, we have things that we're doing there, and we want to protect them. Our area— it was just mentioned about boxing in— our area that we are allowed to fish is extremely small compared to the whole district that is available to the drift fishery.

And we are by definition restricted to our site for which we pay a nets. And some years we do not get a lot of fish. We have bills to pay. The fish might run based on sandbars or wind and we do or we don't get fish. In that scenario, I would oppose the argument that, well, we need to pay bills and so we could take our set nets and put them out in the drift area because that's where the fish are this year.

That's just the definition of how the gear groups work. And I would ask the board to consider that. Thank you. Mr. Wood has a question. Yeah, thanks.

So when your net is out, I can understand that you wouldn't want drift nets around you. And when your net's out on a lease site, you have first opportunity on that lease site. But if your net is not being fished, you're saying that this proposal, you which is good because it keeps the drifters from coming in and fishing your lease site and potentially hooking up on your running gear and your anchors. Is that what you're saying? Through the chair, Mr. Wood, yes.

And it comes up again and again, a misunderstanding of how our fishery works. Whether the nets are on or not, if our lines are pulled up, we can't fish, and it may take us days, weeks, or the next season before we can replace that gear and fish.

Okay, thanks. I'm just trying to— like, I have a lease site. I realize that I'm— I have first rights to that lease site, but I'm not exclusive to that site, you know what I mean? So what I'm hearing is you don't want drift nets hooking your gear and tearing it up. You, you don't— it's not that you actually think that you should have exclusive rights to fishing that part of the beach when you're not there.

Through the chair, Mr. Wood.

Yes, if they tear up my gear, that being my anchor, my buoy, any of those things, it precludes me from fishing that when I'm legally allowed to.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Yes, sir. Kyle Lintz. I just wanted to speak to this area for a moment because the The coordinates are very hard to find, and I had to dig around to locate them. But basically, if you're familiar with the Nushagak area, starting at Clark's Point, there's— it goes 600 feet offshore, and then the area generally grows in the distance off of the mean high tide mark as it goes south. And this is a distance of about 13 miles.

So the primary gear conflict conflict area is for the first maybe 6 or 8 miles, and then you get to the top of Floundered Flats and there's another, I don't know what, 8 miles until you get to the South Line, which has very, very few setnets in it traditionally. There has almost never been a South Line setnet site in the Nushagak. It's a very hard place to operate. There was this year. Somebody had a skiff and they went down there and they ran a setnet site there.

I didn't fish there, but I asked asked about this. And because when I discovered where the coordinates were, I thought, well, that's a whole bunch of beach that there is no setnetters. So they, they are—. I mean, essentially there is, there's going to be an area of the Nushagak which drift boats will not be able to enter, even though there may or may not be a setnetter there. And as a, as a, as a path forward, I would propose that in the Nushagak area, there becomes a 100-foot separation as there is in the rest of Bristol Bay, which would prevent drift boats from intentionally bringing their nets very, very close to the guard buoys.

And, you know, if you give 100 feet between a guard buoy and a drift boat, then you have to make a very, very big mistake for gear entanglement at that point. Now, unfortunately, there's been cases where jet boats have gone inside of setnets and run over gear, and it's, it's really unfortunate. I'm compassionate for the setnetters and the time they've lost. But that's all I have. If there's any questions— Thank you.

Okay, there's about, uh, the gentleman in the green shirt in the back of the line, that's going to be, I think, what we take. So go ahead and state your name for the record. Yeah, Brady Boone here. I'd like to piggyback on that. This proposal is not just shutting down where the setnetters fish.

This is shutting down a corridor of beach that does not have a setnet on it or anywhere near it to where it wouldn't allow drift guys to go in there. How is that even possible? Like, look at the definitions. It's not even in this page to show you a map of that, but please look it up because on this beachside there is no set nets that they're trying to shut us down in that area. It's, it's not okay.

Thank you. Thank you.

Come on forward and state your name.

Hi, Sonia Rutvik Ewing. I am a lifelong Ekuk fisherman. And I would, I would assume I have more experience on the flats than most of these people as I fish on Flounder Flats. Um, I have two things to say. Number one, there's been a lot of discussion about a long, a long piece of area where there aren't setnet sites.

There are traditional sites all along there. Oftentimes they don't produce as high of a yield and so you'll see a lot more setnet sites kind of concentrated closer to Clark's Point. However, they are still sites, and they are often sites that younger people who have just gotten a permit will go and set up down there. So, um, there's— yeah, there's been a lot of discussion about that. I would like to tell you guys that there are actually sites along there.

They're not always the same ones, but that place is also used. The second thing is our gear. I am part of a group of setnetters who for religious reasons do not fish on Saturday, and I know that a lot of drifters will then come in and cross over our lines, try to fish in our area where our nets usually are. That's when a lot of the damage happens, and Whether or not our nets are in the water, that's still our gear out there. Uh, our ropes, our blocks, our buoys.

And that's often when a lot of the damage happens. Thank you. I think there's a question, Mr. Swenson. So you don't lease those sites. You guys put your stuff out there and that's your first come, first served to those sites.

I'm not the best person to ask for the whole beach. We lease our sites where we are. I'm not 100% sure down the beach how it goes, but I do know that when somebody gets a permit, then there are leases that happen. I don't know exactly where or who does them. Once you put your—.

Whether it's a lease or not, once you put your gear out there, you can leave it there, correct? Correct. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks.

New information, please. New information. Kyle Gleason, Bristol Bay stakeholder. Uh, I, I believe the intention of the Ekuk Beach Fishermen's Association's proposal is fantastic, um, and I believe that the, uh, ambition of the Ekuk Beach Fishermen's Association is inappropriate. Um, they need some site protection for sure, and drifters need to get better manners.

Uh, and simultaneously, if this proposal was enacted, the use, the current use which has been brought up, and you know, they're mentioning traditional sites, and sure, there's a site at the end, there's miles and miles of beach here, and the use corridor that would be cordoned off from the drift fleet has also an unintentional effect of creating a substantial amount of foregone harvest once the fish pattern shifts back to the east side, right? So it's currently in the west. We all know fish patterns change, right? There used to be fishermen that used to be able to make a living just on the south line of Egegik. Those guys all had to adapt.

So right now, the fish pattern— and I understand adaptation is harder for setnetters, we know that, right? So the fish pattern's currently westerly. There's been a down cycle economically for the Ekuk fleet of setnetters. And with this proposal, once this fish pattern shifts back to the east side, they won't be able to stop them. And we're going to have an enormous amount, I believe.

I'm not a biologist, but I believe there's also a large potential of foregone harvest that would be an unintentional consequence of this proposal passing. Great intention, overreach. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Yes, Robert. Very quick. My copy says AC 9, page 14.

Sam Volk. I just wanted to kind of confirm what Kyle Wintz said about nets being further up the district. The first thing I did this summer while fishing in the noose was drive the beach so I could see where the setnet sites were along that east beach on Flounder Flats. I believe the concentration of setnets was almost 7.5 miles from the south line, and I believe this summer— I don't know if there were any in between that. I did not see any.

Thank you. Okay, last one.

State your name, please. My name is Richard O'Connor. I'm an ECOG sat-netter. I'm not affiliated with any groups. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, for the opportunity. I support this, and the reason I support it is it's allocative.

The allocation of this is protective to me.

We have boats coming in.

I run an aggressive setnet operation with my family. I do what we call on the beach gear swapping. I have 2 permits, me and my wife. We pull 1 net in full of fish and we set another net while we clean the fish. At high water I'm one of the few fishermen— there's been two of us for about 10 years that have been down that beach almost continuously.

I'm there at high water when nobody else is there. I have a creek at my site I can get back up in. I can watch what's going on. And at high water, the boats come in between the sites. They don't think anybody's down there.

They throw their buoys in between the sites and they set 3 50-fathom nets out and you have set nets along here. Okay, it gets so bad that I can be down there changing my gear and I can pull one net in and it takes me about 3 minutes to set. And at high water when there's no current running In those 3 minutes, I have jet boats coming in and setting on my site. They're watching me fish. Okay, they know what I'm doing and they'll come in and sit on top of my running lines.

Okay, and set 3 shackles of gear out and I can't reset my net. Because there's a boat there, unless I want to— and I use a dozer, all right, I use a bulldozer, and I can ram them into my outside block, but it fouls me. Okay, so we need to do something to give us a little bit of relief there. Part of the reason that we can't catch up on our allocation is We have boats fishing inside our nets, and it's legal what they're doing. I mean, that's legal for him to come in and do it because the law reads if my net isn't there, he can do it.

Right? So I would like you guys to help me and stop this conflict. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay, we're going to move on.

Next proposal, please. Proposal 54, 5AAC 06.368, Nushagak River Coho Salmon Management Plan. It's a proposer in the room. Would anyone like to speak to this?

Next proposal, please. Proposal 55.

5AAC 06.368 Nushagak River Coho Salmon Management Plan and 5AAC 06.358 Wood River Sockeye Salmon Special Harvest Area Management Plan. Mr. Iono. Thank you. I submitted a proposal, Mr. Chairman. My understanding, it's— it's the same as 54.

The reason why there were some concerns in 54 was some language that was added to the proposal that if these plans went away, there wouldn't be a directed coho fishery in the Nishnabeg. But other than that, they're identical, is my understanding. Thank you. Thank you. Would anyone else like to speak to this?

Seeing none, Madam Chair, I believe we are completed with Group 1, and I would turn the gavel back to you. Thank you, Mr. Carpenter. Thank you for Efficiently taking us through Group 1. Appreciate it very much. All right.

Let's take about a relatively short break, 15 minutes or so. Let's say we will come back at— boy, math is hard right now— 3:25. And we will go ahead and take up Committee of the Whole Group 2. All right. We will see you back on the record at precisely 3:25.

All right, everyone.

Afternoon. Group 2 Committee of the Whole happening now. Um, so Group 2 is Fishing Districts Eastside Management and Fishing Periods, Seasons and Reporting. There are 18 proposals in this group, and the chair for this committee is Mr. Chamberlain. Mr. Chamberlain, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you.

You can provide any additional instructions you would like, and let's roll. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, so for everyone's reference, I'll incorporate the prior points given by Chair Carlson-Vandort and Member Carpenter. We want to keep everything focused on new information One of the things I don't want to hear is listen to what everyone else said. We heard what everyone else said.

Don't read from any of the RCs or PCs. Just make a quick reference to them. We will write it down and we will look. I want to keep things moving along quickly. So in that line, we are going to combine proposals 71 through 74 and I will give it to the department.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, I'm Travis Ellison, District area management biologist. Proposals 71 through 74, 5AAC06, new section, general district. Mr.

Chair. Thank you. Is anyone— would anyone like to speak to that? Since we have multiple proposers, we'll just start with that and stay lined up. If I don't see anyone in line, I'm going to assume there's no one to speak to it and we'll move on.

So go ahead, start with your name and go for it. Kyle Lintz. Yeah, I'm in support of this. The trouble with Iggyak right now is that I took my family there a few years ago at the end of the season, and it's a really hard place to scratch fish. It was, it was blowing offshore from the east side and my crew went home and I went there and we went.

I thought, oh, we'll go and fish a little bit. Well, the north line of Iggyak late season is like the most cutthroat fishery in the world. You've got, you got 50, 60 jet boats there and everybody's scraping up, you know, 4 or 5 fish at a time and there's no enforcement there. And if you want to be a legal fisherman, it's really, really hard at the end of the season to fish there. So I just wanted to say that it would solve two problems.

The troopers seem to all just leave on the 17th. And then guys who want to fish legally can't get any fish because the North Line is a place where you can only fish, you know, catch fish illegally. So by spreading fish out, it would allow for people who want to have a real leisurely fall fishing scratch period time to, to be able to do some business. And it would only happen if the runs have met their escapement goals. So it seems like a great idea to me.

Thank you. Thank you, Kyle. We have a— oh, oh, go ahead. No question for you, Kyle. Thank you.

I just wanted to let folks know that I've been working on some substitute language that is similar to what is proposed in— I think it was an RC around Proposal 72, which essentially would create a late season general district on the east side when all all area, all Bristol Bay Escapement goals have been met would require some apportionment to be done. So again, I'm not necessarily saying I support it, but I wanted to create some substitute language around it to have the conversation. I don't know if it's out yet or not. Is it? Has it been received?

Through the chair, so are you talking about Proposal 79? 'Cause that's the only one that we're aware of that you have. Well, it's the general district. And yes, that has been, that has been submitted to board support. I don't know if it's been distributed.

Okay, well, I'll look that up, but I just kind of wanted to let folks know as you're having this discussion that it is in the works and it looks like it is Proposal 71, RC75. So I would encourage people to take a look at that and let me know your thoughts. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please. David Klugen here. As a small-time producer, this would help me catch up with the amount of fish I catch at the end of the season. So thanks.

Thanks. That's all I want to say. Thank you, David. Seeing no questions, we'll take the next. Mr. Basargian.

Kirill Basargian. The general district would help after the escapement goals are met. I fish, usually fish till the coho's nose goes round and the meat goes white. So my wife, self-market buyer, say, "Carl, no more fishing." It would help, the reason being is because everybody leaves. Markets leave by the August, usually end of July, end of July.

Most markets. Some stay maybe to August 10th, if that, and then everybody goes— whoever's left probably goes to Togiak, or if they could. It would help to establish fishermen that have breakdowns or they didn't make the fishing season, medical things, things happen during the, during the main run. Our main run in Bristol Bay Literally is about 9 to 10 days, millions of fish goes through, and then it just cuts down. And from there you just scratch fish.

So the general district, after escapement goals are met, would help the young generation, whoever is left to catch up, to open that up because they're restricted to this, to the, to the areas where we're fishing in the districts. And enforcement keeps flying everywhere. And then if you oversleep, they catch you. If a guy catches, say, £50,000 that year or less, he can't make his boat payments or anything. So he's trying to catch up, and that $3,000 fine on him is terrible consequences, especially in the Igigi district or Nakhnek.

So it'll help produce the guys who Usually the guys who are left, the guys didn't make the main run. And it will help— the General District will help us keep on fishing to produce what we can for our families to live the winter in Alaska. As it is hard, as everybody knows who lives in Alaska, it's very expensive to live here. Thank you, Carol. Seeing no questions, we'll move on to the next.

Mr. Basarjian. Phil Basarjian. I support this proposal because I fish with my dad sometimes up to September 3rd, and anyone who has concerns about the bycatch in this area, the only time we caught other species of fish is when we fish directly in the in the river drainage. Other than that, there was less than 1% of bycatch of any other species than reds. So that shouldn't be a concern from my experience.

And that would greatly help us fish in a very respectful manner and make some money out of it. While doing so. Thank you. Thank you, Phil. Member Carlson— or Member Irwin has a question for you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If this general district was not to open, where do you fish until September 3rd? Well, we fish the Ugashic fall season. There used to be a cannery called Woodbine.

It was the only cannery that stuck around before Icicle bought it out. In the Igigiq, town of Igigiq. So thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Kyle Gleason. Um, I'm in support of this proposal, and there's an equitability of, uh, equitability of access to the resource that would be addressed and solve a lot of problems. Um, rather than, you know, rewarding criminals. Um, and there's also an element of, you know, keeping the majority of the drift fleet on the east side to scratch later, uh, where there's, you know, less issues with Kings, um, where there's, uh, you know, we, we still have a late run, um, and simultaneously like It'll keep boats also from going over to Togiak, and I think it'll create opportunity in— it'll create equitable opportunity bay-wide. So that's one thing I wanted to bring up was just keeping the fleet on the east side.

I think it protects kings, and I think it creates greater opportunity for the fishermen that are in Togiak that aren't going to fish anywhere else. Okay, thank you, Kyle. Uh, no further questions. Next speaker.

David Vardy, uh, drift fisherman, proposer of Proposal 72. I also put in RC 24, which, uh, there's another RC, uh, 471, but it should be for In general, probably 71, 72, 73, 74.

The amended language, we're looking at making sure that we help people understand that the scope of this general district proposal is much different than the 2004 language, which includes the new Shagak District and the west side of, you know, the Kweejack. These are not part of that scope. It is exclusively the east side of Bristol Bay after mid-range, uh, escape goals have been met. To address another concern, possible concern about this proposal, is, uh, it's important that we continue to keep track of genetics testing, and we believe that we can get that taken care of for another 3.5 weeks at the cost of $50,000. And I believe that we could probably raise this through our RSDA.

That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, David. Seeing no questions, we'll move on to the next speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Randy Alvarez. I'm representing Lake Gilly. I'm the AC, and during testimony I neglected to mention why our AC opposes this, mainly because As you've probably heard, the Kweejack tends to be a later run than most of the other— probably all the other districts.

Boats will be coming back from Nushagak and Ugashik to fish the Kweejack at the end of the season. Well, if we— if the general district is open, most of that fishing that is happening is between Johnson Hill Line in the Natnik section down to Iggiyik. That's Middle Bluff or Low Point. That's the big milling area of Bristol Bay. And at that time of the year, at the end of the season, probably most of those fish there are gonna be Kwijak-bound fish because the Kwijak is the latest, probably the latest run in Bristol Bay besides Togiak.

So to open the general district, we're going to be impacting mostly Kwijak fish. And another thing I neglected to mention was a lot of people think that the, the escapement for the Kwijak is 2 million. No, it's not. That's the minimum. We have to get at least 2 million so that we can fish.

If it's 2 million or less, We go inside Naknek River to conserve Creejack stocks. The escapement is usually around 4 million, sometimes a little more. Last year, we did— the escapement didn't even reach 4 million. So there would have been no fishing in the general district if it was to happen. So that's kind of our reasoning for opposing this because it impacts the Creejack a lot, the general district, because where the fishing is going to happen in its whole late.

So thank you. Thank you, Randy. I don't see any questions, so we'll move on to the next speaker. Go ahead, Mr. Basarjian.

Hey, Hariton Basarjian here. I support this general district salmon management. It will make room for everyone to fish when the— of course, when we get all the escapement of the rivers, and we sure do plug them up. So— and we don't get enough time with those big openers, and they only open us in the bad weathers, and we fight with the weather and try to make as much as we can to make our payments and this and that. And it would definitely help for the young guys because, as you probably may know, the State of Alaska and Division of Investments have been really struggling.

A lot of, what do you call them, extended payments and all that stuff. So, well, that's not me, hopefully not, but struggling away from both businesses to make fishing and my other business to make payments and all. Had rough couple years, so it would be very glad— would be glad to fish there later and would have better lines and the troopers wouldn't be in the way and enforcing. And of course you guys would save money. The troopers pack up their gloves and go home and let us fish.

Thank you. Thank you, Harrington. Seeing no questions, we'll move to the next speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Bristol Bay Drifter. Mr. Alvarez stole most of my thunder. I have one thought that I would add to his remarks. Was that— can you give Could you give me your name?

Oh, I'm sorry. Fritz Johnson, Bristol Bay Drifter, Dillingham.

Now, Randy said more than I was prepared to say. The one thing I would add to his comments, though, is fish caught in the general district, it's difficult to see where they came from and where they landed. As a passionate advocate of terminal fisheries, I think that's— there is statistical information to be garnered from landings, and on landings within the established districts. In addition to that, the raw fish tax that accrues to the various boroughs on the east side, who do you give it to? You know, fish are caught at Middle Bluff or someplace else.

That's all I have, unless there are questions.

I don't see any. Thank you, Fritz. We'll take the next speaker.

Brady Boone. So not— I am in favor of this prop, not to mention the burden of the troopers, state funding involved in patrolling when all rivers have met their escapement goals. I am a family person, two young kids. I have them coming to the bay since they were 2 years old. This is a combat fishery, as you guys know, or may not.

Maybe some of you are new. But is very high stress, very combat-like. When all rivers meet this escapement goal and you open to a general district, it gives time, it gives you breathing room. I can take my kids out there. I can show them the ways that I was raised when I was a little kid.

You can go fish and be a fisherman. It'll alleviate whether you're an in-river fisherman or a south line fisherman. It spreads the fleet out. It gives more people room and time. It's better for every aspect of the fishery.

Thank you. Thank you, Brady. I don't see any questions. We'll move to the next.

William Cronchie, Drift Fisherman. I agree with a lot of the intentions of this proposal, but I, I cannot support it for biologic reasons. Uh, I'm concerned that it will have ill biological effects on late season in stock. So some of the things that I would need to see to support this would be counting tower data from the current time they close. I'm, I'm not sure we could talk to the biologist exactly when it is, but this last year, the last major processor stopped buying on August 15th, I believe.

A rough date the counting towers stopped were somewhere in the nature of the 20th of July. So for that period I would need to see the counting tower data, what stocks are represented in those numbers, and maybe a rough estimate of which spawning streams they're going to. And with implementation of this proposal, I believe there will be an increased effort on the drift— from the drift fleet. And with the increased effort, there'll be increased catch, and it will affect those numbers that we would theoretically see if we had the data. So, um, I think it's more of an enforcement issue.

A lot of the guys testifying here are simply frustrated that it's not equitable. The fishery's, uh, you know, rewarding bandit behavior. It's not perfect, but when the enforcement is there, it's, uh, significantly better. And I don't think you'd be hearing a lot of the complaints you're hearing today if we simply had enforcement later in the season. Thank you.

Thank you, William. We have a question from Member Erwin. Yes. Thank you, William. So I'm, I'm in alignment with kind of the concern that you've mentioned about the biological purpose.

I'm not as familiar with this fishery and I cannot— I apologize, I can't remember which district you usually fish in. But would there be concern for the coho coho runs being affected by this general district with the timing that's written into the proposal right now? I will say I believe that stocks and fish that are currently not being harvested will have an increase in rate of harvest. So to what extent that will be and how— what effect it will have is, I don't know, but I believe there will be increase. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no further questions, we'll move to the next speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Thomas Tilden, a fisherman since 1965. I, um, I'm against the idea of, uh, doing away with the lines because there's a couple things I I have to tell myself that we're a terminal fishery. We're not an intercept fishery. That's what basically we're doing.

The things that I see is that species of some of the run has not reached its peak yet because on the Nuu-chah-gak, we still have a dog run and we still have a silver run. And then I know that for years and years I've listened to University of Washington talk about all All that fish would come north of Igigiigik and then disperse into the Kweejaq, Togiak, Igushik, Nujikak, and other river systems. And so by opening this, making this wide open, it is going to create tablock to species. It's going to create tablock to smaller river systems, and it's going to jeopardize something, because over the years that I fished, I've seen years where we barely fished, where, where the rivers, river systems have collapsed. And it's the small runs that revive these systems.

And when you open up as a wide-open general district, you're harming those small systems that can revive a system. And back in the '60s and the '70s, I could tell you it was very hard. And I really even doubted whether or not we'd be able to revive the systems. But it was the little ones growing up on the Nushagak River. I know where the fish are spawning.

And I know that each little creek, each little spring, each little system has its own run. And that's what you're gonna be wiping out. You're gonna be wiping out runs of these creeks, these springs, and these little inlets. You go to the lake, it's the same thing. The people that live in the Ligigig Lake, they have redfish camps where they get spawn-out fish.

And those fish, they spawn there every year. But when the Wood River Special Harvest Area went in, all of a sudden some of those systems were wiped out, basically because of the fact they were caught down in the special harvest area. That's what I see happening if you create a general— you could be wiping out a lot of small systems. And that's— that makes a whole— a mistake. I think it's a big mistake.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tilden. Seeing no further questions, we'll move to the next.

For the record, my name is Frank Woods. Um, the general district, as you know, was a management tool for foregone harvest. It was an experiment that failed biologically and basically ethically by intercepting fisheries where Bristol Bay is known and, and has the highest standard for terminal stock fisheries.

If we open a general district, it would be a management problem to record where they were going, how they were harvested. And between— there's already, I mean, reporting problems between districts. That means if I catch 10,000 pounds, these boats that we're talking about, the combat fishing boats that you're there referencing, can get out of step with 10,000 pounds. If I could— there's, there's reports of a boat in the early that can fish all 5 districts in one day. That's about 200-mile loop and reported delivered in one day.

So how do you manage terminal stocks with mixed deliveries? Not just a management problem, but have you asked industry how would they manage to report that and take deliveries on that unorganization. I see it as not only a biological problem for terminal stocks but also a production problem. No thank you.

Thank you, Frank. Uh, see no further questions. Next speaker.

Yeah, hi, I'm Fran Schoenberg for the record, a drift gillnetter, and, uh, This proposal, I believe, would be helpful for young fishermen. Being one, I have a 1980s jumbo mudge deck and I have to stay late in order to try to make the numbers in the black. And it's hard to compete on those lines, as you guys have heard, with the competition that's going on. But you try to go to other places and the issues are seal predation, which nobody's brought up. And, you know, you set your net, you're by yourself, you're in a legal area, and you just get torn up by seals.

So you get 20 fish set and you haul back in 10 minutes to try to get the net back. You got 30 seals on you and you get 5 of those fish and all their faces are ripped off and the processors don't really like them anyways. So, uh, it's just kind of a challenge that the general district, I feel, would, you know, those seals have learned where to be. And they have these big gangs on the south lines and they just, you know, all across. And so the general district would alleviate that seal predation issue a lot.

Thank you, Franz. Seeing no further questions, we'll take the next speaker.

Matt Marinkovich, Drift Netter. I just want to add a little bit to what Franz was saying.

The reason the seals learn that area, they are just at the south line, or they look at the line, and when the tide is coming in, they're back from the line as you drift in, and that's where they're hanging out. So if you leave your net in the water too long, they eat your net. And then as you're on the ebb, as you're moving towards it and you're picking your net up at the line, that's where they are. And they're there because of the line. And if you were dispersed throughout the district, you'd have a seal or two, but you wouldn't have 20 or— I'm not exaggerating if I say 40.

They, they do gang up on you, and it's not worth fishing with the seals. That's extra. The previous general district was in 2005, and it was an experiment that lasted 3 years. And for a number of reasons, it's is not around anymore and it hasn't been. And that was a preseason general district looking to catch fish earlier because there wasn't the processing capacity that we have now.

It just— I don't need to go into it, but that was preseason. What we're talking about now is not even really the same general district, but an east side corridor, which is different than the general district, which also included Nushagak in the previous general district. And so it's a different thing we're talking about. Also, I want to reiterate, because some of the testimony was unclear, is that this is a late season event. And like on the first day, it showed a picture of the— a video of line fishing with the chaos at the Johnson Hill line and You will not see that in this late season fishery.

The vast majority of the boats have gone home. They're done. It's the, the group of boats who stay late are the guys who fish late, and there's not that many. You come up and we're done, all the boats are on the beach. You know, if you quit your late season fishing early, you come up and the boatyards are full.

So there's not that many boats that are out there. Then you might ask, why is this line so contentious? It is like a gentleman's criminal line, okay? Because the line's here, and then the— if there's a guy on the line, well, then someone goes out in front of him, and then just the next guy goes out in front of him, and they just sit there because the tide is isn't moving them quickly because they're usually in the shallows on the beach. And it's, it's like you look and it's like, well, this guy is, you know, however far over the line, which is too much for people to handle, and they just don't fish there.

That it's the area is closed because of the most illegal guy. And what this East Side Corridor General District is trying to do is alleviate that. And you've heard— Matt, let's bring it home a little. Okay. You've heard from many people about they just want to be able to go fishing and the Eastside Corridor is going to do that.

So I'm in favor of it. Thank you, Matt. Seeing no further questions, move on to the next.

Hello, my name is Reed Tenkley, senator, Kwee Jack my whole life. And I just wanted to amplify what Mr. Tilden and Mr. Wood said about the value of a terminal fishery. And Bristol Bay's hallmark is that it is a terminal fishery. And I know it matters greatly to those of us who participate in it. Mr. Cronje was also testifying to that as well, though not using the words terminal fishery.

But his concern is my concern, that if we open the fishery along this corridor, we don't understand the implications of the fish that we're catching because the value of Bristol Bay being a terminal fishery is that we can, we can very easily document where those fish are coming from and where they're going, and so that we can harvest them proportionately to what the biological escapement goals allow. Thank you very much. Thank you, Reed. Seeing no further questions, next speaker.

Morgez Kritz, and I'm from Togiak, and I'm with Togiak Advisory Committee. Togiak Advisory Committee from Togiak opposes all of the general district proposals, mainly because Togiak is a late-run fishery and it's a small fishery, and we are— since it's small fisheries general district can practically wipe out our fishery in Togiak. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no further questions, we'll move on to the next speaker.

Good afternoon, my name is Rachel Donkersloot and I'm here representing the Laken Peninsula Borough. The borough represents 17 communities within the region and the The borough has strong concerns about all of the general district proposals. They all encompass a step away from sustainable management, like you've heard from other testifiers. All of the local ACs opposed these proposals. I wanted to build on what Randy Alvarez said about the Cuijak in particular.

We may meet that minimum $2 million escapement, but I think it was in 2021 where the department cancelled late season surveys in Lake Iliamna. So we now have a large data gap on the distribution of those genetically distinct stocks and how that may be impacting subsistence harvests in Lake Iliamna region. So I wanted to put that on the record. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Rachel.

I think we have a question from member Irwin. Thank you, Ms. Donkershoot, for being here. As you may or may not be aware, the only escapement goal goals that exist are for all 5 species on the Nushigak and then sockeye on quite a few other rivers. So being that the trigger point for opening this general district would be meeting the escapement goals, without escapement goals for coho, pinks, and chums in the Kwijiak and other areas, do you think that that's a strong enough indicator of conservation to open the general district? I wouldn't know.

Thank you. Okay, seeing no further questions, thank you, Rachel. Mr. Angason, come on up.

And we'll close the speakers with the gentleman in the green hat. Yeah, my name is Pete Angason. I'm from King Salmon. I've fished all my life. A little bit of history about fishing in Bristol Bay, short.

Is like June 28th, fish will start picking up. Traditionally, the fish will hit on the first. On June 11th, you'll have a second little spurt after the first big run. And then on the 16th to the 17th of July, the fish will really peter out. And then about 2 weeks will pass from there and then you'll have a lot of fish coming up on the west side, not so much on the east side until silver season.

But long time ago, the Italians, when they were back in Peter Pan, they were always being caught down by Middle Bluff, you know, boatloads of fish and so forth. But if we take away these lines, we take away our safeguards for watching our fishermen because they are pretty good robbers. They've been perfecting it for years. Why should we reward bad people for doing bad things? And I have to say, we don't want to reward them by taking away the lines because we need the fish to go upriver.

And these fish do continue to run even till late October.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Seeing no further questions, we'll take the next speaker.

Hi, Joe Echo Hawk, Creejack Setnetter. Their escapement can be met without there being any guarantee that fishermen have had their season that just this year we had 500,000 fish go up the Creejack in a day and you have processors logistically unable to handle that volume of fish. Fishermen are on the beach, limited out, not fishing, waiting for processing capacity to return. So creating this general district upon the idea that escapement is the only consideration, I feel like is, is short-sighted.

I think also it's incredibly important to factor in the biological viewpoint of this. We are in a decade of 50+ million runs with the record runs in very recent memory. They are managing this fishery incredibly well, and I am very hesitant to throw anything into that process that limits their ability to do that. And I think biologists weighing in on this is incredibly important. It should be really considered here.

Thank you, Joe. Seeing no further questions, we'll take the last speaker.

One thing I think is important to speak to here is— can you state your name? Kyle Gleason. I apologize.

One of the things I think is important to speak to here is the intent of the fleet behind sponsoring this proposal as well is to self-fund, uh, further genetic data. So there's been talk of like, we don't understand the impact on the stocks, where in fact, if the fleet is self-funding further genetic data, we'll actually gain a greater understanding of the run. If this general district passed. So, you know, I think that's been misunderstood. Thank you.

Thank you, Kyle. Seeing no further questions, that concludes testimony for 71 through 74. We'll move on to Proposal 70. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Stacy Vega. I'm the Igikig Ugashek management biologist, commercial fisheries. Proposal 70. 70, 5 AAC 06.200, Fishing Districts and Sections, extend the northern boundary in the Uegashik District. Mr.

Chair, thank you. Does anyone wish to speak to Proposal 70? Okay, as the department's reading it up, be jumping in line and we'll take the first up. Hi, this is Warren Gibbons. I am responsible for this.

And although this interception data was available, it was not made available to the— to the best of my understanding, it was not made available to the advisory committees.

I kind of wish it would have been. I wonder what their reaction would have been.

When I received the information from the state, I was a bit overwhelmed. And while I'm comfortable waving the flag, not so good on doing the math. And, um, but luckily I have a daughter who's got a master's in astronautical engineering and who's basically a mathematician. Mathematician, and she brought it all in living color to me. Um, I think she knows more about Bristol Bay now than most people, and she lives in Kentucky.

So if the math is accurate as outlined in RC 34 on this document here, does this board have a concern regarding this measure of interception of Yugashik stocks in Igigiq, which at times are 40 and 50% of the Igigiq harvest?

Or if there is no concern, is this something that we're just simply going to normalize?

To gauge the measure of this impact, It's almost impossible to do it in season.

The way they've met— the way the state has measured this is through genetic sampling at the processing venues in Naknek.

So it doesn't seem to me to be something you can turn on and turn off at your leisure.

And when we're talking 1 to 2 million fish that are foregone to the Ugashik harvest, I admit we're not gonna, we're not gonna be able to stop all of it, but we need to do something here.

That fish that's foregone to the Ugashik harvest is also foregone to the tax base of Pilot Point.

And the last time I checked, they weren't swimming in cash.

There's been some concerns from the local set net community on— with regards to the expansion of the North Line at Ugashic. That's understandable.

RC 36 points out that during the last 6 years, the SETNET fleet has exceeded their 10% allocation by 5.5%.

And if you go back just another 1 year on top of that, it runs up to 8%.

So that's not my numbers, that's the state's numbers.

So we have a little catching up to do on our end, and they're welcome to come outside and join us if they'd like to, even, even if you don't take action here.

In trying to understand how this boundary line in Yugashik was formulated, I asked just anecdotally anybody that I could who I thought might have an answer for me, and I came up short. Nobody knew. So I, I had a brainstorm just a couple nights ago to call Dick Russell.

Dick was the area biologist in Ugashik from 1980 to 1996.

His first year as the manager, he spent all winter going through the archives of what his predecessors left him And he couldn't find out how this line got established either. Warren, we're on 5 minutes. Uh, can you, uh, kind of wrap it up in the next 15 to 30 seconds?

The basis for this proposal was to create some relief at the north marker in Ugashik because It's only 1 mile offshore, and at low water, it can only accommodate about 2.5 boats.

And it's chaos.

What this morphed into was an outrage over interception.

I kind of feel like— I remember when I was young, did every— and when you, perhaps when you were young, did anybody ever steal your lunch money? That's what I feel Igigiq is doing to Yugashik right now. And I would appreciate if you contemplate a sunset clause to assuage whatever fear you may have of taking some action to deal with this issue. Thank you. Thank you, Warren.

Seeing no further— no questions, we'll move on to the next speaker.

Good afternoon. I'm Mark Niver, Bristol Bay fisherman since 1980, live in Wasilla. On this particular subject, I thought I'd give you maybe a second option would be to move the north line down to the Walrus Line and then possibly extend the outside district a mile or two or three. Work that out between yourselves. But that would be another option for you to possibly think about.

I put in an RC on this also. So thank you. Questions? No questions. We'll take— we'll move on to the next speaker.

Go ahead, Mr. Besargian.

Phil Besargian. I support this proposal because Nushigak is my primary area where I start, and halfway through the season I move to Ugashik. It's more, it's more of a quieter, more, more leisure fishing, except the north line. If we were to extend the line, it would kind of spread out the boats, and we will all pretty much get an equal amount of fish, or close to that. And Speaking of the entrance of the Ugashik River, a lot of times we fish in the channel and we see thousands and thousands of jumpers.

But once they hit the fresh water, they go down, all the way down to the bottom. And we see them on our sonar because we have really good sonars. I fish year-round, so I have good equipment. We see the fish. It's 30 feet deep.

We see the big schools just passing by, but it's too deep. So the— if we go out a little further where it circles around before it goes into the river, we'll get a chance to actually catch it. And it's very rare that it comes in hard and it's surface fish. So thank you. Thank you, Phil.

Uh, seeing no questions, we'll move on to the next. Come in, Harrington. Hey, Harrington, Sergeant again. Well, I really do support this Ugashic fishery. Young guys, and we've been fishing out there since little boys, whatever, girls, who knows.

But anyways, it's been fun. I really like it. North Line is fun and all. I came this year early and it was pleasant. It was like older guys, me, it was fun.

It was really And we were catching some fish, you know, on the outgoing tide. And I really do support this proposal because when the crowd shows up, it really gets tight. And everywhere, I mean, middle of the district, everywhere in the channel, it's like 300 boats, one little district. I mean, it would very open up some opportunities for us. And of course, uh, it's, it's a little bit problematic when the low tide goes there, and then there's not enough line.

You can only set 2 boats, and it gets a little frustrating. And again, with the troopers, everybody gets mad, but I just tend to leave and set and forget, I guess. But I would really like this, and it would help us. And we would leave the setnetters, of course, on the north line, because this year had a little bit of problem with them. Well, not me, but it was a little big of an issue.

Troopers were having a good time with them, looks like, with all of us, boarding us for no reason. But that's that. Thank you. Thank you, Ayrton. Seeing no questions, we'll move on to the next.

Mr. Chair, thank you. Fritz Johnson, Bristol Bay Drifter. I was really surprised to hear the the numbers of Yugashik fish caught in Igigiq that the proposer presented earlier in his testimony, again, as a proponent of terminal fisheries, if there's a way to tweak that a little bit so not so— something like 30% of the fish caught in Igigiq are actually destined for Yugashik, if I remember those numbers right. At any rate, I think something like an extension of the northern boundary there would help with that.

I think it's important that you all remember that the Outer Port Haiden District in Area M, it does extend out 3 miles. And according to the WASIP studies from a number of years ago, a relatively huge— sometimes as much as 80 and 90% of the fish caught there were actually destined for for Bristol Bay. So again, I'm in support of this proposal. The adjustments that the other speakers suggested, you know, may be an option as well. But thank you.

Thank you, Fritz. Seeing no further questions, come on up, Mr. Angerson.

This is what 30 years of some fishing or more get me. Aagigiiq. Anyways, I don't agree extending that line because when they extended the line in Aagigiiq, I used to fill 3 fishbooks in one summer. And then I got to the point where I only had maybe 15 or 20 tickets. So if you extend the line in Ugashik, and they have that line in Igigiik, you have another intercept fishery.

And that means the people in Nushagak and elsewhere in the Kwiijak aren't going to get their fish. So we don't need to have another intercept fishery. And it's hard to get rid of it when you get them. I disagree with it because it killed my setting site. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no further questions, Kiro.

Kiro Basargin.

We fished Igigiik and Yugashik since I was probably 2 years old. My mom would be at the boat and cradling us. We had a 6th family fishery there. My dad never fished Naknek or Yugashik. Nushiga, he didn't get a chance.

He died at 32. But I remember fishing there in Yugashik area. And Yugashik area is small. And the fish gets there way late, sometimes later than July 18th. Sometimes.

So majority of the fishermen are gone.

As people are concerned about intercepting fishery, it's probably— it's probably not going to be an issue. The reason for that is sometimes guys in Ugashik sit there for 2 weeks waiting for them to have an opener, while guys in Igigiq Nushigak, Kujiaq, Heaven Opener. Those guys sit and bear and bear. I used to sit in— my dad used to, and all the brothers used to sit in Yugashik for 2 weeks waiting out just to fish while everybody else was making money.

So extending that line will be profitable and good for the setnetters. They would alleviate from the setnetters. The fishermen have a little more to fish, and Ugashik is small, so 100 boats in Ugashik is equivalent to like 800 boats in Nushagak or Kujiaq. It's so small, so you won't have a big concentration of fishermen. And we do appreciate if the board would consider something like this, and considering the past history of how much— and to this day how much the local fleet would benefit.

And for them to have that 30% for the locals, it would be beneficial for them to have it in their income portfolio.

Thank you, Carl. We will move on to the next speaker. Thank you.

Kyle Lintz. Just some new information I just wanted to point out that Thanks to the excellent management by the regional biologists, the Ugashik River system is producing some very nice runs. And it used to be kind of a, you know, guys who went there early kind of had to wait a long time. And as these runs are developing and getting stronger, the biologist is able to give a little bit more early fishing time. And 2026 is no exception.

And the space allowed by this would be very, very beneficial to the drift fleet. Thank you. Thank you, Kyle. Seeing no questions, we'll take the last speaker.

Good afternoon. My name is Kim Rice. I live in Girdwood. I fish in Iggy Gig. I'm a member of the Lower Bristol Bay Advisory Commission or committee, and we didn't— as a committee, we didn't support this because thoughts of northbound intercept of northbound fish.

And also they thought— I'm just saying they, the portion of drifters on our committee— said that by increasing the district would increase the early fishermen that are going to come down and fish down there. And if the locals are thinking this, most people would jump on a bigger district, but these guys did not. That's it. Thank you. All right.

Thank you. That concludes our testimony for Proposal 70. We'll move on to 46. Oh, thank you. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Proposal 46, 5AAC06.364, Naknek-Kweejack District Commercial Set and Drift Gillnet Sockeye Salmon Fisheries Management and Allocation Plan. Mr. Chair.

Thank you. We'll take the first speaker.

Mr. Chair, Richard Wilson. I'm the maker of this proposal. This proposal was not intended to be second to Proposal 45. 45 Was intended to be, to be heard of first because it all— 45, 46, and 47 were all made one was supporting the other.

And so it's a little— to me, it's a little backwards here, but I will do my best if you so choose.

Please do. Okay. So the allocation portion of this proposal would only come into effect if the time which we're talking about moving Moving the deadline of registration from the 17th of July onto the 22nd. And the reason why we're trying to move this date is to, is to ensure that management has tools to continue to, to adjust the fishing opportunities for this, for the Naknek Kwijak has a later run return and it's the last, pretty much the last one in the bay. So we're trying to create an opportunity here to continue the regulatory effort here to assure that the escapements are met.

Okay, thank you. Seeing no questions, we'll move on to the next speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Randy Alvarez, Lake Ellie. I'm the AC rep, and previously I mentioned the escapement goals for the Creejack.

The department's forecast for 2026 this coming summer for the Creejack. It calls for a $4.4 million escapement into the Creejack. That's the escapement goal that the department published when they came out with their forecast this last early November. So we, we need to extend the registration and move it to the 22nd. So that hopefully we get the 4.4 million escapement into the Kwijak River.

This, this last fall and winter, I've been running to talking to people from up and around Iliamna Lake, and they said they didn't— there wasn't enough escapement last year. And so we— this would help improve get more fish up into the river, up to the lake. Thank you. Thank you. We have a question.

Member Wood, what's your thoughts on why they weren't there, or do they just come in late?

Well, I've been fishing for a long time, and I can't— I've— since I was 6 years old, and If I could figure that out, I'd probably be a millionaire in Las Vegas. But, you know, everybody's trying to guess where to go at the beginning of the season. That's half the battle, what district to fish in.

The Creejack is getting later. I talked to our regional biologist maybe a month ago, He said, "In 2018, the Kwéjak was running so late that the Setoneters were still up fishing, a whole bunch of them up at Graveyard were in the Kwéjak District, and they still had 2 tenders up there taking fish because the fish were running so late." And It's getting to be like that. It's, uh, that's why we ended up with boats moving to the Kwijak District late in the season from the other one. So, um, it's hard to guess why they're coming back later. You know, it's— the department should have a better answer to that than I do.

So thank you. Thank you, Randy. Uh, seeing no further questions, we'll take the next Speaker: Matt Marenkovich, Drift Netter. So I generally fish in the Naknek-Kwejak section, and I can just offer you some verification that when the district is thrown open after the 17th, there's an increase of boats that come from other areas to fish on the tail of that run. And it definitely does increase the catch and harvest of the tail end of that run.

And also, um, when they throw it wide open and you're on a 24-hour schedule, that means you're fishing the full extent of the low waters, which I personally think is great because it's a great time to fish. But if the— if that date is pushed back, then we remain on periods and we wouldn't be fishing through the low waters. And that seems to make a difference on catching kings and things like that. So there's just a little more information for you. So thank you.

Thank you, Matt. Seeing no further questions, Kirill, come on up.

Kirill Basargin. I think the Naknek fishermen opposed to this is because when all the other districts are open, they have a high concentration of more fishermen coming in. Biologists have been doing a great job of letting the fishermen know when the, the registration period needs to end. So I think we should leave it as it is and leave it to the biologists, leave it, uh, to whoever is managing it at that time. Other thing for the district registration is if it gets pushed back and not considering the run, instead of benefiting some, some fishermen corals, we're not looking at it as a science view about what the fishermen say.

If— okay, I'm getting lost in the words here, but it would become that fish would get concentrated in one area. I think that's what fishermen are concerned about, to move the registration period to further on.

Thank you. Oh, Member Wood, do you have a question? Oh, thank you. No questions then. Next speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Reed Ten Clay, Senate, Kweejack area. Just— I was just reviewing our historical catch records, and I just want to tell you about 15% of our catch occurs from the 17th through the end of the season. So that's just an observable number that we have.

Thank you. Thank you, Reid. Seeing no further questions, we'll move on to proposal number 47. Thank you. Proposal 47, 5 AAC 06.320, fishing periods.

Mr. Chair. Thank you. We'll take the first speaker.

Mr. Chair, Richard Wilson. I'm also the maker of this proposal, and it also was intended to be proposal number 3 out of 45, 46, 47. The end— the intent is to slow down traffic coming into the Naknek Kwesjak here and giving our department the opportunity to, to still manage the run that's coming in. From the 17th to the 22nd.

Something that we haven't mentioned here, which is very important, is, is it gives management the opportunity to continue opening and closing the, the, the periods and the conservation of Kings going up the river. The, the 22nd is what mirrors the 5.5 mesh restriction, and after that it's— there's no more restriction for the kings. So I mirrored these proposals to the 22nd so that we can also keep track of, of the, the kings run. We have an early run which is, which is in June, and about a month later, about this time in the latter part of July, there's a second run of kings, something that's not been mentioned. Something that is almost lost in our area.

And we're just trying to maintain a little bit of structure here too, so the department can— if you were to open it wide open on the 17th, the, the fishers can fish water levels of any, any depth. And the Kings run, and they're very vulnerable. So you get— if any of you have been in the in the Bay Area, when the tide's out, minus tides, there's not a whole lot of area there that the fish can move through except in the channels. So they're very vulnerable. So looking to still continue management abilities to that and the cohos.

The cohos are another one. This time of year, the cohos are starting to mix in with the chums, and we're having trouble with our cohos. So just, just gives management another opportunity to continue to do his job very well, which he does, to, to help mitigate some of our issues here with the late runs. Because once you, once you open this up, everybody knows that after the 17th of July, Kwee Jack bound, you know, and they're still trying to get there. Most of the time, the, the run is still trying to be met in the Kweejack.

And so both— they're so efficient nowadays, they go from one district to the next in, in a matter of hours. So thank you. Thank you, Richard. Seeing no further questions and no further speakers, we'll move on to the next. 48.

Mr. Chair, proposal 485 AAC 06.374, Kweejack River sockeye salmon Special Harvest Area Management Plan. Mr. Chair, thank you. Does anyone wish to speak to this one?

All right, folks, start moving up while the department's reading.

Apologize for that. I was looking at some catch records. Mr. Chairman, Reed Ten Clay again, setting up Cuijac District. This is my proposal, and I was here last year before you talking about this issue. The department had wanted to have a Kwee'jak special harvest area in case we needed it in the 2025 season, which we didn't end up using it, but it was there just in case it was necessary to provide fishing opportunity if the Naknek were not to come back with sufficient strength.

It was decided by the board to adopt language that was boilerplate from the Naknek River special harvest area. And at the time, we had decided that we would just come back now to talk about the particulars of about the Kwijak River and how perhaps what was in the Nagin River Special Harvest might not be exactly what's necessary for the Kwijak or a perfect fit. There was some discussion last year about the opening ratio, and you'll see in this proposal I talk about proposing a 2-to-1 ratio where presently on the books is a 3-to-1 ratio. That 3-to-1 number is a proposal that was submitted by my wife and myself in 2006 at the in-cycle meeting excuse me, I can't remember if it's in cycle 1 or not in 2006. But anyways, it was 2006, and it was in response to the previous method of allocating harvest in the Naknek River Special Harvest Area.

Prior to that, we had been fishing for allocation, and so it resulted in the setnet fleet sitting for 9 tides around the 4th of July while we waited for an opportunity to catch fish because the drift fleet wasn't able 2. I just— a lot of people weren't out fishing is the problem. And so we proposed 3-to-1 because we wanted an opportunity to at least go fishing ourselves, even if not everybody else was fishing. And I know many members are here are remembering that time period as well. So there wasn't anything magical about 3-to-1.

We just proposed it because it was better than what had been happening. And we really only fished a season and a half at that 3-to-1 ratio. We have far more history fishing at other things that didn't work even worse. So what we're proposing here is a 2-to-1, and the way we came up with that number is we created a spreadsheet and tried to come up with harvest opportunity and predict who's going to fish more or less and so forth. So it isn't just a random number on a page.

It seems to reflect what our ambition is, which is to provide equitable access to the resource in times when the Niantic River isn't producing enough fish. Okay, thank you, Reed. Seeing no further questions, we'll move on. Kyle, come on up.

Kyle Lintz. I helped create this proposal last year and it was adopted. This area hasn't been fished yet, but it could have been fished the prior year to eliminate foregone harvest. So the nice thing about this fishery is that this area is it's a place where if the Cuijak is doing really, really well, then we could go in there and we could mop up some fish without taking any Naknek stocks. So it's never been fished, and I believe that we should stick to the current allocation of 16 to 84 or 74, whatever that comes to, for the Naknek Cuijak section.

And I think that that should be— I think we should leave this as it is. And if it does get fished, then we'll see what kind of effort comes there for the setnet fleet. Thank you. Thank you, Kyle. We'll take the next speaker.

Fred Marinkovich, Bristol Bay Fisherman's Association. We oppose this proposal. I mean, this has never been fished and we— management came up with this plan and, you know, to change it before it is even implemented is— would be— it would be a mistake in my mind.

Thank you, Fred. Seeing no further questions, come on up, Randy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Randy Alvarez, Lake Eleema AC rep. I'd like to give you a little more information on the allocation, how it came about. I neglected to say it during my testimony.

As I mentioned that Dr. White was the chairman of the Board of Fish when allocation was implemented. And he— we didn't know beforehand that allocation was going to be— was going to be a thing. We showed up at the meeting and he told us to work on coming up with percentage numbers between the gear groups. Only one district did. And then the board came up with the allocation numbers between the, between the districts, and we've been using those except for the in-river Naknek Special Harvest Area.

Well, when those numbers, when they came up, those numbers came up, and because of separation between the Naknek settlers and the Cree Jack settlers, the more the board gave half the 16% allocation to the Naktik Settlers and 16 or 8% to the Kwee'jak, half and half. Well, Dr. White asked, because I was a representative for the AC, he asked me if the— should the Kwee'jak Settlers be fishing? I said yes, because typically when the drift feed is fishing in an Naknek section, they are catching some Kwijak fish going by. And previously, before allocation wasn't in place, the manager for the Naknek Kwijak District would let the setnetters— when the drifters are fishing constantly in the Naknek section of the Naknek Kwijak, along with the Kwee'jak setnetters. The manager would let the Kwee'jak setnetters fish once every, I think about every 2 days, so that they could catch some fish because there are some fish that drifters are catching, some Kwee'jak fish going by the, in the Naknek section.

So He asked me, should the Kwijak setnetters be fishing? I said yes, because they have been. They've been fishing once every couple of days. Well, when the regulation came out, the Kwijak setnetters were fishing as much as the Naknek setnetters, and the Kwijak are the drifters in the Naknek section. So the— for years, the Kwéjak setnetters started fishing by themselves in the Kwéjak District.

And we didn't understand the implications of it right away, but after a few years, especially on the years of not a real big return for the Kwéjak, it was taking longer and longer into the season for the Naknek drift, for the drifters to get out of Naknek section and start fishing into the Kwijak. Before allocation, we'd probably start fishing in the Kwijak District around the end of June, early July. Randy, let's, uh, let's, uh, try to wrap it up in the next 15 to 30 seconds. What it came out to be one year, the drifters wouldn't could not go into the Kwijak until about the 7th of July because the Kwijak were catching— the setnetters were catching that much more than they had been. So it was something that no one saw when they first— when they implemented allocation.

Thank you. Thank you, Randy. Seeing no questions, we'll move on to the next. Mr. Ankerson, come on up.

These are beautiful topics.

Let's be efficient with these topics. When my brother was alive, he always said, He sat in the river, special harvest in Naknek, for 20 years so we could have the queen of the fishery, which was the Creejack, to come back again. And then like Randy was just saying that the Creejack setnetters fish 2 tides a day for the whole season darn near. Pretty good poundage. And I did fish up there a few times when I was at netting, and I did go up into the special harvest when they had it.

And I observed there is a lot of illegal activity going on. I'm gonna leave it like that. But we don't need to, you know, and that has a lot of rivers that it feeds, that Branch River. There's a lot of the fish go up there and they, they kind of spread out like little fingers So for us to open that special harvest, it'll be a bad, bad thing. Let's stay on ratios.

We need to keep this conversation focused on ratios. I'm just saying that if we open up the river for fishing, it'll be very bad for the fish.

Thank you. Thank you. Matt, come on up. Again, we're keeping it to ratios, folks. Matt Morogovich.

I'm a drift net fisherman and I have been been fishing in Naknek for a long time, and when they first implemented the Naknek Kweejack— or the Naknek Special Harvest Area, there was— we were fishing concurrently with the setnetters. That was a mess. So then they did the separation thing, and I forget the details, but I remember that the year of 2005, there was just no fish in the middle of the season, and we thought the run was over. Guys were quitting because they thought it was over, and then all of a sudden they showed up again. That's the lull that happened when the author of the proposal dreamed up the 3-to-1 ratio, which was then implemented.

And since that time, it seems like the 3-to-1 ratio works pretty good. We as drift debtors fish 3 tides, then they fish 1, and the allocations seem to be met correctly. And let me just explain a little bit why it would be a 3-to-1 ratio. It's because when the drift fleet is fishing, they've got a vast area that, you know, let's say this, the, the Kweejak Special Harvest Area is here, and the drift netters can fish way out to here. Okay, so that's a lot of area with a lot more fish in it, and we catch more fish during the same amount of time that the setnetters fish in their little area.

Okay, so now if you condense this all into the same area, which is very small— the Cuijac River Special Harvest Area is pretty tight space— and to put the whole drift fleet in there, we're just gonna catch all the fish that are there. And then, then what? Wait for them to come across the line? But all these fish that are way up here, we're not going to get those fish. So That's why the 3-to-1 makes sense, because we can catch, let's say, probably a third of the fish that we would normally catch if the whole district is open.

So keep it at 3-to-1, please. It makes sense. Or at least let it happen once and then see what happens. But it's kind of conjecture to just say, oh, it should be 2-to-1 because I think it should be, you know. So thank you.

Okay. Seeing no further questions, Joe, come on up.

Joe Echo Hawk, Kweejak Setnetter. I have fished in Naknek and Aleknek special harvest areas.

The— I think it's important to note the, the Kweejak is twice as big for a fishing area as the Naknek special harvest area when they're in those modes. So there's actually going to be a lot more room than I think Naknek fishermen are used to seeing in special harvest times. I would expect more fishing effort and potentially larger drift fleet in there than what could be planned for in a Naknek time. And I think the root of this proposal is, is really just trying to determine what is fair, equitable, and allow some economic viability for both fisher types in this, and it can be very difficult. As I said earlier, the Kwee'jak can get large runs in a single day or 2-day period, and I have witnessed— I've been sitting on the beach multiple times with— excuse me— with the water boiling in front of our sites while we watch 500,000+ fish go by.

And that can be— it can be tough when you're sitting out long periods time to, to, to make some kind of a season of it and turn a bad situation into something you can manage for that year. So just want to put that out there. Thank you, Joe. Seeing no questions, we'll move on. Kyle, just to add to my prior comment, I state your name for the record.

Kyle Lintz. I believe that I learned today from the Wood River special harvest area discussion that the manager kind of prioritizes escapement managing over allocation issues. And if that was the case, I would just encourage the board to give the tools to the manager to make these decisions as needed. Thank you. Thank you.

Seeing no questions, let's wrap it up with the next speaker. Thanks, Mr. Chair. Tony Zock, BBDC. I'm sorry, I'm not going to talk about ratios, but there is another part to this proposal.

It is to change the distance in which gear associated with set gillnet fishing must be removed in the Kersha from 500 feet from the mean high water mark to 30 feet from the mean high water mark. I attended the local NACNIC AC meeting and they, they supported this proposal as amended, and their amendment was to change that 30 feet to when the setnetters aren't fishing to all gear out of the water. Um, when I was reviewing their minutes, I noticed a discrepancy, so I made a point to find the committee chair on the first day of the meeting, and I talked to him about it, and he said it is a discrepancy, and their intent was to remove all gear, but their minutes reflect that they struck the language, um, the 30-foot language, which means what their minutes reflect would be to keep it out at 500, which is the opposite of their intent. I've also talked to other AC members from the NACNIC AC, and they confirmed the intent was for when the setnetters are not fishing, all gear would be removed from the water. So I just wanted to try and make that clear since they get it— didn't— they didn't get a chance to present their, their AC testimony.

Mr. Chair, thank you. We have a question from Member Erwin. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Zock.

Thank you for bringing that to the attention of the board. And I'm just— if you're in contact with those folks, it would be good to see an RC from, from that committee if possible. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

Seeing no further questions, we'll move to 49. Mr. Chair, proposal 495 AAC 06.374, Kwijak River sockeye salmon special harvest area management plan. Mr. Chair.

Okay, go ahead, Reed. Hi, Reed Ten Clay, Kwijak Sedaneter, back again for the kind of same discussion. This was proposed by my associate Aaron, and he's not able to be here, so he asked that I could speak on his behalf. The concept of a dynamic ratio in a special harvest area is what we initially proposed as the Kwéjek Setnet Association back, I think it was in 1999. And it was deemed to be too complicated at the time to implement.

But now that biologists have more accurate real-time data through computer systems and things that just didn't— yep. What's, uh, substantially different than the prior— That it's a dynamic ratio that's based on participation. So that the ratio of openings fluctuates depending on the participation of the gear groups. So that's the concept. And I think it would work really well in a lot of different special harvest areas as well.

This would be the first one that we would try it in. But it would give flexibility to where if there's way more participation from the drift fleet than we expected, they would get more ratio of openings. If there was far less participation, then it would go to a 1-to-1. And so that's the concept. Thank you, Reed.

Seeing no further questions, we'll move to the next speaker. Fred, come on up.

Fred Marenkovich, Bristol Bay Fishermen's Association. We oppose this for the same reasons as the last proposal. I mean, it's— we've never fished here, and to start changing things just doesn't seem Logical. Thanks. Thank you, Fred.

Seeing no questions, Matt, come on up.

Matt Marinkovich, Naknek Drift Netter. So basically, when you're fishing in a special harvest area, if there's more boats, you just catch the fish that are there faster. And of course, there's fish coming into this, into the district. You catch those as well. If there's less boats, then each boat will have more fish, but you're going to catch the same amount of fish.

So the, the, the tiered deal, it's irrelevant. It should just be stick to the 3-to-1 ratio and don't change anything because it's not going to make any difference with the drift net catch.

Thank you, Matt. Seeing no questions from the board, no further speakers, we'll move on to 50. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Proposal 50, 5AAC06.355, Bristol Bay Set and Drift Gillnet Sockeye Salmon Fisheries Management and Allocation Plan.

Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Come on up, Reed. Sorry, I didn't realize I was coming so fast. 50 Is a proposal to add the language to our regulations that would mirror what's in the Salmon Management Plan. Am I off base here?

Right? The way he read that, I was like, am I dreaming here? But yeah, so the concept here is that I would love to see some more quality-minded initiatives. All the conversations so far at this board meeting has focused on of getting more poundage or more fishing time, and I'm trying to think of how we can do more with less. So the reason for having the same wording that's in the Herring Management Plan also in the Salmon Management Plan is so that when future ideas come up that have merit to improve the quality of the salmon so that we can do more with less, that we can point to that mandate and say, because of this governing mandate would you consider implementing this policy?

One example is where I think it's in 51, which is the next thing to come up, would be trying to create small changes that do improve quality. So, and I'll talk about that at the next one, but the point of this one is to get more of the next ones. Thank you. We have a question from Member Carlson-Vandort. So, I'm just kind of curious, why you think it's best for the board to mandate potential quality considerations and not industry sort of doing that work itself.

Why do you think— what do you think the board's role in that is? Well, we do have a precedent of having in our herring management plan, and the reason why I think it would— it could matter to the board, if I could talk about 51 just for a moment, but if you look at the Nushagak Wood River Special Harvest Area, When the drift fleet is allowed to have additional mesh on board, so if you go into that harvest area, you can't fish with as much net. But rather than having to get rid of that extra net or whatever, you can put it in a brailer bag on your vessel. And one thing that does is it does improve quality. So if in the Naknek River Special Harvest Area, when I would be fishing with my family on their drift boats, the way that they would utilize their extra gear is that they would lay out the permitted amount of gear and then they would round haul it or stern haul it, as Matt had talked about in early testimony, into a pile in the back of their boat.

And as they were cleaning that fish out, they would have set fresh gear out again to repeat the cycle over and over. And it does degrade the quality to fish in that way, as opposed to picking off you're real. So by having a regulation that is geared towards quality, by simply putting that extra mesh in a brailer bag, it diminishes the appetite to fish in that way. Okay. Okay, seeing no further questions, Matt, come on in.

Matt Marinkovich. And for your benefit, I'm going to read this prepared thing.

We're not reading. We're not reading. No reading. Okay. Well, then I can use it as Cliff Notes here.

Okay. Quality— whoops. Quality is important, okay? And it shouldn't be managed by regulation. If you're— I already talked about stern hauling.

It can be— stern hauling is not quality degrading if you do it correctly. And if you, you know, if you do it with intent to keep your good quality, you don't put too much fish in your stern, it's fine. So there's other fishing practices that also cause quality degradation, and like towing your net too hard, towing a net full of fish too hard, even leaving your net in the water for too long in rough weather, it degrades the quality of the fish. So, I mean, once you start managing for quality by regulation, I mean, it's just too much. It's not something you can really do.

So One thing, though, on this, on this particular Proposal 50, I have used the same language to focus more on waste, which this proposal addresses. And I did that through RC 31. And I want you to please consider that, RC. And I would actually like to substitute substitute language into this proposal and have the RC language move forward on this board meeting.

Thank you, Matt. Seeing no further questions, Kyle, come on in. Kyle Lintz. I support this proposal. I think that the Board of Fish should consider quality because that's why we're all here, is to make more money.

And if our quality goes up, then our prices should go up too. So yeah, but I don't see it as a question of whether guys are stern hauling or wrapping every fish on their drum because they're about to go over the line, or whether they're, you know, pulling fish out of Ecock with a tractor and dragging them up the beach. That's just the way people fish. But I think the Board of Fish should look at this from a management perspective, that if we're about to get shut down by processors or put on limits, then let's just let the districts fill up with fish. Let's close the districts before the processors put the fishermen on limits.

You know, I guess I just— I love the idea of this proposal, and I think that the board should look at it in a bigger sense and also as a long-term vision for creating more value in the state fisheries. Thank you. Okay, we'll move to 51. Mr. Chair, proposal 51, 5A, C, 6.374, Kwijak River sockeye salmon special harvest area management plan.

Thank you, Reed. Let's cover the points that weren't covered in the prior. That's right, Mr. Chair. Reed Ten Clay, Kwijak Setnetter.

Just wanted to say everything I covered in the last one I think would be relevant here. Thank you very much. Thank you, Reed. Fred, come on up.

Fred Rinkovich, Bristol Bay Fishermen's Association. We oppose this big time. I mean, to have a different gear group trying to explain how a drifter fishes his gear. I mean, I fished special harvest areas for years, and lots of times you're in situations where you're running out of space because there's not a lot of space there. You need to overhaul your net, you run back, and then you lay another piece out and you work that gear while your crew's picking your gear.

And it's like you're— when we're in these special harvest areas, we're limited for net and we're limited for space. And I mean, just the way it's— this— proposal is just, like I say, it's a settler trying to tell a drifter how to fish his gear. And I just— we oppose it. Thank you, Fred. Seeing no questions, we'll move on to the next.

Come on up, Matt.

Matt Morinkovich. So the, the— when you're in a special harvest area, And I mean, just the thought of what you would do with these nets in brailer bags. You're gonna put them in your hatch, you just store them on your deck, or do you put them up on the bow? You know, and it's like, why not keep them on the drum? Keep them where they're supposed to be.

And the intent of this is to restrict the fishermen from being able to use all their net. There's nothing wrong with using all of your net. I mean, you don't use it all at the same time, but you set your net and sometimes it comes back with no lead line. So then what are you supposed to do? You gotta go unpack your net out of your bag and all this other stuff.

And it's just— there's no reason for it. And I know it's that way in Wood River, and that's great. And for whatever reason, though, they chose that, and whatever reason they adapted did that method of fishing, that's great. But I don't know, it's never been that way in Naknek except for the very first year we fished in the Naknek River special harvest area. It was, it was interpreted by most guys that you could only fish this 50 fathoms.

Fish 50 fathoms, that means 50 fathoms in the water, 50 on deck and everything else. And we did that that first first year, and it's very difficult to manage your fishing operations with a limited amount of gear. And then the next year, we set our 50 Fathoms out and started clearing on the deck, okay? And basically, the next— that everybody was doing it the way it's done now. And I think there was a lawsuit or something, or something happened in court, and it was allowed to be that way, and it's been that way ever since.

And I don't see a reason to change it. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Uh, Kirill.

Kirill Vasargin.

I'm for this proposal, actually. I have never fished like that. My boat's not big enough, but I see a point, and there's fishermen. I haven't seen small native fishermen that way, that still pull by hand. Like, they still don't have rollers on their boats.

And it's an advantage for some of them is they carry an extra shackle on board. Special harvest is— area is open for a reason because there's escapement in there. So when they set their gear in There's a lot of fish. There's so much fish in there, so they haul their fish in and set another gear out. While the crew is working on this gear, the other gear fishes.

That's the whole point of opening the special harvester, because there's overescapement coming in. So allowing this would be beneficial for the fishermen to catch extra fish because they're closed in that areas where they cannot catch fish for their season. Okay. Thank you, Carol. With that, we're going to pause for the day and I'll turn the chair over to Member Carlson-Vandorp.

Before everybody starts escaping, I want to give you some information. Okay. We're going to pick up and take up the last few proposals in Group 2 committee tomorrow morning, and then we'll probably take a bit of a break and prepare for deliberations on Group 1 and Group 2 tomorrow. If you are working on substitute language, I highly recommend you start working on it with a board member tonight. So if you're looking at special language for the board to consider during its deliberations in either Group 1 or Group 2 tomorrow, then please work with a board member and make sure that staff sticks around and checks with board members to see if there is any special language to be working on.

And otherwise, we take notes on it, but we really— you need to get your substitute language going with a board member. It really increases the odds of it getting before us in deliberation. So I am just going to say that out loud, and then we will resume tomorrow morning at 8:30 with the end of Committee of the Whole Group 2. Mr. Nelson. I just wanted to mention to the board members, we're printing the ACPC comment matrix out tonight and probably be ready in a few more minutes.

So if you guys want that tonight, just stick around for a little bit more and we'll have a copy for you. Thanks. See you in the morning at 8:30.