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Fisheries biologists from the commercial and sportfishing divisions of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game gave several presentations at the third meeting of the Joint Cook Inlet Salmon Task Force on June 25 in Anchorage, but legislators still came away with questions.

Soldotna commercial fisheries biologist Jeff Fox said the presentations weren't well received by the task force and added that he wasn't sure if the task force understood most of what was presented by the department.

"They had questions all over the board, virtually on all salmon species and stocks," he said. "It was a vigorous debate."

In addition to giving presentations on the sockeye salmon commercial harvest, Fish and Game scientists showed slides depicting the drift net harvest of Yetna River salmon so far this season and another one depicting the setnet harvest, Fox said.

"The simplistic view is if you close the drifters everything's OK. That's if you don't try and harvest fish along the east side," he said. "If you want to manage multiple stocks for multiple goals there are trade-offs. You go over in some and under in others and you try to alleviate the pain in both so you don't go way over in one and way under in (another)."

At its latest meeting, Fish and Game scientists spoke about salmon genetics, stock analyses, the economic impact of sportfishing in Alaska and presented an action plan for the Susitna River sockeye salmon run, but some of the legislators realized much of the data is based on educated guessing and said some of the information is missing.

The task force could return to the Legislature with a wide range of solutions from doing nothing to taking allocation responsibilities away from the Board of Fish, said Rep. Mike Doogan, D-Anchorage. But, he said, generating enough data to come up with those solutions could take years.

"The more I learn about salmon in the upper inlet the less I know," he said. "I said at the outset as long as the data was good it would tell us what we need to do or not do. But the data isn't good, so I'm not sure what we're going to do next."

So far the task force hasn't had an opportunity to discuss the issues, Doogan said. It's taken testimony and heard about Fish and Game's studies, but hasn't considered what to do next and until that happens, there's no predicting what decisions it will come up with, he said.

"The department has been managing those runs by the seat of their pants for a long time and sometimes that's good enough because some of those biologists really know what they're doing," he said. "As many variables as there are in a question like this and as many unknowns there are in the variables, I'm surprised at how much more of an art than a science (fisheries management) is."

The task force was formed to address dwindling sockeye salmon returns to the Susitna and Yetna rivers. At its first meeting in Soldotna on May 22, the task force heard from several members of the public who spoke of the positive and negative effects curtailing the commercial fishery would have on the Kenai Peninsula. Many sportfishermen in the Matanuska-Susitna region blame the dwindling sockeye numbers on the Northern District Cook Inlet commercial fleet. The task force met again in Wasilla on May 29 where it took comments from the public there.

"It seems like there's an awful lot of 'I don't knows' and hand-wringing," said task force chairman Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage. "We're dealing with a resource we don't have a lot of control over."

The task force must have a report ready for the Legislature when the next session begins, Johnson said. Even though he said he doesn't see this happening, one of the determinations the task force can come up with is that it needs more time to come up with a report.

"People have been working on this a long time," Johnson said. "It would be very egotistical in a summer period to solve situations that have been going on for years."

Johnson hoped the genetic information could be use to manage the salmon runs during the fishing season, he said. Currently genetic information is used in salmon stock analyses after the season has ended.

"(We) rely primarily on game managers that have a lot of experience and do a good job," he said. "If something goes slightly wrong, (no one asks) why did it go wrong? Why aren't the returns there?"

One of the reasons the task force was formed is because of the reduced number of fishing days Mat-Su anglers received at February's Board of Fish meeting, said Mat-Su area sportfishery manager Dave Rutz. Even though he said the board process was the way to go, many anglers were frustrated at the outcome of the latest process and decided to take their grievances to the next level, Rutz said, particularly after Northern District setnetters received two additional periods of fishing this year.

"The board process is probably the best thing since sliced cheese," he said. "It allows public input, but it doesn't go the way everybody wants it to all the time and no matter what decisions are made you're never going to come to a happy medium. It just won't happen."

Sen. Tom Wagoner, the only Kenai Peninsula representative on the task force, said he didn't think anything was accomplished at the Anchorage meeting. The most pertinent thing the task force talked about is determining the most accurate method for counting returning adult salmon.

"(Fish and Game) goes back and they don't want to acknowledge how important weir counts are," he said. "They keep saying there's six of the last nine years escapement that hasn't met the minimum goals set by the Board of Fish and if you look at the Cook Inlet Aquaculture results over the last two years, in the weir counts they've had on seven lakes it proves beyond a doubt that we're getting twice as many salmon back into the portion of the system as Fish and Game thought we were getting."

The date for the next task force meeting hasn't been decided, but Johnson said it would probably be in Juneau some time after July 9 during the Legislature's special session. At that time the task force will hear from representatives of the tourism industry and commercial fishing industry in order to determine the economic impact both sportfishing and commercial fishing have on Alaska.

Jessica Cejnar can be reached at jessica.cejnar@peninsulaclarion.com.