Alaska Board of Fisheries Agenda Change Requests for 2023/2024 Cycle Posted

The 2023/2024 Agenda Change Requests (ACRs) have been posted. The 13 ACRs will be considered at the Board of Fisheries Work Session scheduled for October 12 & 13 at the Egan Center in Anchorage. Comments on ACRs are due September 27th, 2023.

ACR 2 submitted by the Fairbanks Advisory Committee to reduce South Peninsula June salmon fishing time would put Area M salmon back on the Board agenda for the 3rd year in a row. ACR 2 requests the Board to:

• Conduct an out-of-cycle Area M Board of Fish review of the South Unimak and Shumagin Islands June Salmon Management Plan before the 2024 season.
• Change management to specific windows and delete caps.
• Consider  observer coverage for both the drift and seine fleets as well as point of delivery and within the processing plant.
• Develop plan for securing run reconstruction numbers on the Kuskokwim River and increasing accuracy of numbers on the Yukon River.
• Increase genetic sampling area and response time on analyses. 
• Consider a new Area M management plan with an annual review.
  

ACR 1 would require set gillnet anchors and buoys to be removed from the water when not actively being fished.  

ACR 3 would reduce commercial salmon seine depth in the Southwestern and Unimak Districts.

ACRs 4, 5 & 6 address Bristol Bay salmon gear concerns.

ACR 7 addresses Yukon Commercial gillnet gear.

ACR 8 would restrict Copper River Commercial salmon fishing.

ACR 9 would change sport salmon fishing regs.

ACR 10 addresses Nushagak sport salmon fishery management.

ACRs 11, 12 & 13 address Southeast Alaska King salmon management.

The Board will only accept an agenda change request:

(A) for a fishery conservation purpose or reason;
(B) to correct an error in a regulation; or
(C) to correct an effect on a fishery that was unforeseen when a regulation was adopted;

If the Board accepts an ACR at the Work Session, it will then be scheduled for a regular meeting during the 2023/2024 meeting cycle. The regular meetings this cycle are scheduled:

• November 28 - December 1 in Homer for Lower Cook Inlet Finfish
• January 9 - 12 in Kodiak for Kodiak Finfish, and
• February 23 - March 7 at the Egan in Anchorage for Upper Cook Inlet Finfish

Comments on Agenda Change Requests can be submitted here by September 27.