United Fishermen of Alaska, the state's top commercial fishing organization, calls the proposed voter initiative to ban setnets "a staggering social and economic assault on Alaska's seafood industry."
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The Frog has spoken.
This must be against the state constitution.When did sport fishing guides,out of state fishermen,and sports fishermen in general get priority over commercial fisherman under the state constitution.
“Theatrics and political games are no way to manage Alaska’s natural resources.” UFA instead wants AFCA to run it through the BoF process. They’re kidding right? The BoF process is nothing but “theatrics and political games” played by the industry and the State. I’ve sat through dozens of BoF meetings and the wealthy and politically powerful commercial fishing industry usually gets its way. Where there’s an issue between gear groups it the more politically powerful group (usually the seiners) that wins. It’s not about what’s morally or ethically right, it’s about taking what you can because you have the power to do so and screw everyone else.
I’m glad to see KRSA bloody your noses in the BoF appointment process last year. If you haven’t figured it out yet, just a word of warning - there will be more citizen initiatives, legislative bills, and lawsuits in the near future aimed at changing the way fishery resources are managed in Alaska. This is all because of the biased and corrupt BoF process.
Wes-what about a ADFG commissioner interview on navigable waters and 9th circuit-- this affects whatever the initiative doesn't
UFA under J. Curry has the lowest profile and visibility ever. It sure has taken awhile for UFA to speak up on this matter. Mark Vinsel was the best UFA director ever. Always speaking up for UFA and always so accessible to everyone. People will soon start wearing Where's Julianne? buttons like they did with Paylin.
The rants and insults by those opposed to the initiative are to be expected. I can appreciate the initial reaction to such a dramatic move by the sport groups. It has taken everyone by surprise and of course the first reaction is to fight back with every thing at your disposal. This will calm down after a while and reasonable minds will start looking at this as an opportunity to get some good work done. No one is all right and no one is all wrong in this fight. Keep that in mind. It is getting time to put the guns and knives aside and replace them with pen and paper and find a solution. It's out there someplace. Start looking.
9:46 true. BoF, after hearing over 100 local Sitkans testify against the bloated herring harvest, did nothing after one fisherman said he just spent 30 grand on a new net and any change to the fishery would have a negative effect on his business. SO if you want to fight commercials, you have to look at how the law is slanted toward their benefit whenever you challenge them, the processors too. It is a tough challenge.
Well, what IS wrong is to put a question to the voters that claims to have science behind it. Those science based propositions should be left for the managers to propose and allocations to the BOF process. What is also true is that many of the sport fishing interest do not respect the historical particaption of the resource users and they are predating on the bulk of Alaskans emotions rather than supporting stable sustainable fishing communities. Also true is that it is a gross sad greedy world out there but it doesnt have to be....
Well, lets define the different kinds of fishing. I see sport as catch and release. I see subsistence as catch and eat. I see commercial as charge money and go catch or catch and sell for money. No exemptions. If there is going to be a fight over fish in Cook Inlet or anywhere in the state, you're going to need to start at the beginning with a definition of each fishery, it's responsibilities and limits. And just as important, you're going to have to account for every pound of every species taken.
Some good points 2:47 and 5:58. But you left out that guided sportfishing is a commercial business that charges people money to take them fishing. Legitimate commercial fishing (not guided commercial) has every pound that is landed, retained and sold accounted for. No other users come close to that. Estimates vs actual real fish tickets. The proposition being proposed is a sweeping greedy reallocation. Other Alaska sport fishers have to use sport fishing licenses to get a fish to eat. They don't have PU regs that allow them to trample on spawning beds in an already stressed river system for "sport".
Someone should wake up at the UFA. Or is McCune just as confused today as when he voted for the Limited Entry Act in 1972.
Alaska, where every invalid goes setnetting. Or was the caselaw a difficult read for our politician of the Year awards, at UFA too.
Some people like McCune, should actually move to Alaska, or does his Whidbey Island abode, also relate to reality, and the power of the VOTE?
Just Vote McCune, as CLUELESS, as any old invalid setnetter!
Supreme Court of Alaska.
Jean R. MATSON v State of Alaska
Feb. 2, 1990.
MATTHEWS, C.J., and RABINOWITZ, BURKE, COMPTON and MOORE, JJ.
OPINION
after the Board of Fish and Game closed the Southeast Alaska set net fishery...
The superior court, Judge Rodger W. Pegues, upheld the regulation. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for a hearing in accordance with this opinion.
I. In September 1971, while working as a logger, Matson was injured in an industrial accident....
By the time he finished preparing to fish as a setnetter in 1972, there were but two openings left in the season, and the continuing effects of his injury prevented him from safely operating his own boat. He did fish in 1972, but only as a crewman on a gill net boat for one opening. Matson earned a total of $4,979 in 1972. All of this was derived from sources other than fishing.
In December 1972, the Board of Fish and Game eliminated the set net fishery...
Can someone ask McCune or Curry, if they actually have any ability to review reality, from the back door bunch, as usual at the UFA.
When you become a widow, orphan, or handicapped logger of the sort, get into fishing esp Southeast Salmon Set Net, the natural model best shown at UFA headquarters.
5:02 blogger: Your reality is hysterical.
The Supreme Court upheld the Limited Entry Act. The Supreme Court tossed Penney's F.I.S.H. initiative in the trash can.
The case you cite was germane to an individual set net permit holder seeking relief to be granted a drift permit under C.F.E.C. consolidation of S.E. fisheries at that time.
Case Law: UFA successfully defeated the F.I.S.H. initiative in the Supreme Court.
Your personal comments speaks for itself - a pathetic nature.
Funny thing voter initiatives. Generalize, pull at heart strings to get a superficial reaction. I wonder how an initiative to reinstate Jim Crow laws would have flown in Alabama in the '60's? How about an initiative to deport Japanese citizens in the early forties? Funny thing is, we don't have commercial set nets here in southeast. the only setnets we have are subsistence. I was reading an article about this yesterday. They put the value of Cook Inlet salmon net fishery for 2013 at $39M. Of course, this in ONLY the ex-vessel value. No mention of the economic activity generated to harvest that dollar amount. Or, of the raw fish tax revenues enjoyed by the state, revenues that reduce the tax liabilities of EVERY Alaskan. Even the guides. Guided sport has economic activity, but it is dwarfed by comm fish. Dwarfed.
A.F.C.A. wants personal use fisheries in Southeast for coho stocks on their website articles. Apparently, inriver coho sport fisheries, resident aport allocation vs. non-resident catch limits, and ignoring the fact that sportfishing is prioritized over personal use fisheries. Prop-a-coho allocation from commercial and inriver sport under the guise of king salmon.
A setnet ban in Cook Inlet for reallocation to personal use sockeye fishery? 600000 Cook Inlet PU sockeye can't fill Lower 48 resident-in-laws freezers.
City of Kenai rake hundreds of thousands of PU fish waiste that any local processor would be shut down and fined a million bucks.
A voter gillnet ban because Kenai late-run king goals always been met?
The Three monkeys approach - has A.F.C.A.'s president guide seeing no-evil, speaking no-evil, and hearing no-evil over the Kenai early king run which the guides put into the toilet when set gillnets aren't opened and residents harvest only 10% of that run (90% guided non-resident harvest).
Joe Conners can enlighten the Petersburg Fish and Game Advisory Committee on Kenai early-run bycatch, commercial setnet harvest of only 3% of total Kenai coho return, and why guide boats produce turbity problems on the Kenai River in July that violate EPA water standards. Joe can further explain why he thinks Advisory votes don't matter and why ADFG should foresake management of Alaska salmon resources.
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