The Alaska Board of Fisheries (BOF) will meet in Cordova from November 30 - December 6 to deliberate and vote on proposals submitted for Prince William Sound/Upper Copper and Susitna River finfish. The Chitina Dipnetters Association (CDA) will be represented at the meeting by two of our board members to defend proposals beneficial to Chitina Personal Use Dipnetters (PU) and oppose those detrimental to our fishery.
Several of this year’s proposals deal with restricting or eliminating the ability to dipnet salmon from a boat, targeting both the PU and subsistence fisheries of the Upper Copper. Many dipnetters choose to use their own boats to harvest their annual family bag limit. CDA feels that dipnetting from boats is just another viable method of securing that bag limit. Our proposal comment opposes restrictions to boat dipnetting in the subsistence fishery for fear that those restrictions could later be applied to the PU fishery.
CDA will be defending a proposal we submitted, #18, which asks the BOF to extend the lower boundary of the PU fishery 1/2 mile downstream. Not only will this provide more shore based dipping territory, but also serve to relieve the congestion of boats that occurs in the short stretch of Copper River across from Haley Creek, a favored area for boat dipnetters.
The entire CDA Board of Directors encourages individual dipnetters to send their personal comments supporting CDA's position. Comments to the proposals are due by November 15th and can be made online at http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=process.comments. Be sure to select “Prince William Sound – Comments due 11/15/2021” as the Board Meeting for which you are commenting.
The full text of our comments are available in HTML or as a PDF file.