The recent creation of a subsistence seat on the Kenai-Soldotna Alaska Department of Fish and Game Advisory Committee was followed by an outpouring of public support for a proposal to reopen beaches to personal-use setnet fishing. But early efforts have been hampered by unresponsive officials, said Tim O’Brien, who was voted to fill the advisory committee’s subsistence seat in February.
Frustrated with the lack of public official attention needed to advance a proposal to reopen beaches, O’Brien said he plans to resign from his subsistence seat on the advisory committee.
“As of right now this is a fishery that will go nowhere,” he said.
But not because the proposal to reopen beaches to personal-use setnet fishing has not galvanized support, he said.
The Board of Fisheries ended personal-use setnet fisheries in most of Upper Cook Inlet and restricted them to the mouths of the Kenai and Kasilof rivers in 1996.
O’Brien said he has collected the signatures of more than 400 people who would support a proposal to reopen beaches now closed to personal-use fishing with set gillnets, as was allowed in the early 1990s.
The restrictions on setnet fishing violate Alaskans’ constitutional rights and unfairly favor the commercial and guide fishing industries over Alaskan fishermen trying to gather food to feed their families, he said.
“The fishery was taken away from us because we don’t make any revenue for the state,” he said.
Subsistence fishermen want to open the same stretches of beach that were open to personal-use setnet fishing in the early 1990s — from Anchor Point to approximately Drift River on the opposite side of Anchorage, with the exception of areas near the mouths of rivers, he said.
Although a few bad apples may have abused the fishery, authorities overreacted when they closed the beaches, said Bill Perrigo, a proponent of reopening beaches.
“You don’t shut down the road because two or three people are speeding,” he said.
Proponents complain that restricting the personal-use fishery to the mouths of the Kenai River and Kasilof River has created a hazard by forcing fishermen to stand elbow to elbow while catching fish.
“Do you have to drown to get them?” said Bill Arnold, a proponent of reopening beaches. “It’s a dangerous situation out there ... . It’s called chaos at the beach.”
The restrictions also have taken the joy out of fishing, they say.
“We’re all corridored into one little area there,” said Bill Warren, a proponent of reopening beaches. “They’ve got us all herded like sheep so they can watch us, I guess ... . They have absolutely no trust in us as citizens.”
The crammed fishery has made it particularly difficult for older fishermen and children to access the fishery, a situation that can only be relieved by allowing people to spread out, proponents say.
“It really creates a mess of our fishery,” Warren said. “It’s combat fishing is what it is with the river the way it is. It’s not a good experience.”
