Dipnet supremacy?

The House Special Committee on Fisheries will hold a hearing at 10 this morning on House Bill 18, which would give "personal use" or dipnet fisheries priority over all other fisheries except subsistence.

The bill sponsor is state Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak.

You can listen to the hearing by teleconference.

Here's a Matanuska-Susitna Borough resolution favoring HB 18.

And here are a bunch of letters from commercial fishermen opposed to the bill.

Fishy bill filed

The Alaska Legislature today released a bunch of bills prefiled ahead of the 2013 session, which opens Jan. 15.

Deckboss looked them over and found only one of real relevance to the commercial fishing world.

House Bill 18 — An Act providing priority to personal use fisheries when fishing restrictions are implemented to achieve a management goal. Sponsor: Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak.

A looming fish fight in Juneau

We've got a potentially hot legislative hearing scheduled for this morning on House Bill 266.

Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, says his bill "directs the Board of Fisheries to place restrictions on sport and commercial fisheries before putting restrictions on personal use fisheries when the harvest of a stock or species is limited to achieve an escapement goal."

Translation: Cook Inlet salmon dipnetters could keep fishing after sport anglers and commercial gillnetters are shut down.

Click here to find Stoltze's full sponsor statement plus the actual text of HB 266.

The hearing begins at 10:15 a.m. in the House Special Committee on Fisheries.

Listen here.

'Disproportionate influence'

With only eight days left in the session, members of the state Legislature have introduced resolutions asking Gov. Sarah Palin to examine the "inordinate and potentially unfair, unethical, and disproportionate influence of the commercial fisheries industries on fisheries management in Alaska."

OK.

So what's got these legislators so stirred up?

It's a lawsuit the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, representing commercial salmon fishermen, filed against the U.S. commerce secretary on March 5.

The 13-page suit seeks a measure of federal control over the state-managed salmon fisheries to, among other things, put a stop to personal use dipnet fisheries open to Alaska residents only.

Among other complaints, UCIDA is angry that commercial sockeye fishing was closed at the Kenai River last July while dipnetting "continued unabated," with the minimum sockeye escapement goal going unmet.

In their resolutions, the legislators ask the governor to oppose the lawsuit.

And they ask for an examination of the commercial fishing industry's "disproportionate influence."

Rep. Bill Stoltze, R-Chugiak, is the prime sponsor of House Joint Resolution 32.

Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, is the prime sponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 22.