Chitina Dipnetters Association Members:

Thank you to all that took the time to email and POM the Alaska Legislature in support of our slate of Board of Fisheries appointees. The Legislature voted and all but Karl Johnstone were confirmed. In a show reminiscent of the Judge Kavanough hearing, a minute before the vote on Karl's confirmation, Representative Ivy Sponholtz, of Anchorage area, stood and said more than two anonymous women, who worked with the BOF during Johnstone's previous term on the board, accused him of inappropriate comments of a sexual nature thus creating a hostile work environment for them. A vote to table his confirmation until Johnstone had a chance to defend himself passed by one vote. At the end of the hearing, a call was made to suspend the table and have a vote on his confirmation. Karl Johnstone failed to be confirmed. Here are a couple news links on the story.

Lawmakers defer vote on Board of Fisheries nominee after sexual harassment allegations surface
Democrats weaponize anonymous allegations against Fish Board nominee - Must Read Alaska

The Fairbanks Outdoor Show will be the weekend of April 26-28. We will again have a CDA booth there and are in need of Fairbanks and North Pole area members to help man the booth. You will not be manning the booth alone, as there will always be at least one CDA board member joining you. It's a good time and if you come in through the rear entrance of the Carlson Building they will have a list of our workers and you will be admitted to the show free. Below I have attached a time slot sheet for our booth. Pick out a good time slot for yourself and email or call me to confirm it. Please help us make our booth a success!

Chuck Derrick, President
Chitina Dipnetters Association
PO Box 72665
Fairbanks, AK 99707
cderrick@chitinadipnetters.com

Chitina dipnetters:

First, thank you to those that sent in personal opinion messages to the legislature supporting Karl Johnstone, Israel Payton and Merit Carlson Van-Dort for seats on the Alaska Board of Fisheries. If you haven't done so yet, there is still time as confirmation before the full legislature is not until Wednesday. Just follow the easy instructions in my previous member email.

On Monday, April 15, 6:30 PM, the House Resources and House Fisheries committees will be conducting a joint pre-confirmation hearing to question the full slate of appointees and take public testimony. We need to make a showing! You can give oral testimony at the time of the hearing by joining me at the Legislative Information Office in Fairbanks (Room 308, USA Federal Credit Union Building by Seekins Ford), at their office in your community, or by phoning into the meeting using the teleconference number, 844-586-9085.

If you are unable to participate in the above live forums, you can also send a quick support email for the three above candidates. Send your email to Representative.John.Lincoln@akleg.gov and Representative.Geran.Tarr@akleg.gov. Representatives Lincoln and Tarr are co-chairs of the House Resources committee. Make sure you say you are a personal use dipnetter and ask them to please submit your support email into the record of the April 15 BOF appointee hearing.

I can't stress how important our showing of support is to guarantee a fair BOF when I go before them with proposals benefiting the Chitina dip net fishery. Please do your part.

Confirmation is Wednesdays, so this should be the last push.

Thanks for your help,

Chuck Derrick, President
Chitina Dipnetters Association
PO Box 72665
Fairbanks, AK 99707
cderrick@chitinadipnetters.com

April 11, 2019

Chitina dipnetters:

Your action on this request is urgently needed. Governor Dunleavy has announced his four candidates to fill seats on the Alaska Board of Fisheries. The Chitina Dipnetters Association supports three of these candidates outright.

Mr. Israel Payton
Mr. Karl Johnstone
Ms. Marit Carlson Van-Dort

These candidates had their first hearing yesterday in the Senate Resources committee.

Karl Jonstone was formerly on the BOF and, while chairman, spearheaded passage of CDA's proposal to increase the bag limit for the Chitina Personal Use Dip Net Fishery. During public testimony yesterday, Mr. Johnstone was severely berated by members of the Cordova commercial salmon fleet for his part in passage of our proposal. We need him back on the BOF and your support will help make that happen!

Israel Payton is currently on the BOF and has been renominated. He is a big supporter of personal use and sport fisheries.

Merit Carlson Van-Dort is new but we believe will fall in the middle of the road in allocation issues.

Final confirmation for these candidates could occur as soon as the middle of next week.

I'll walk you through the process to send a public opinion message to all Alaska legislators voicing your support for these appointees.

1. In your search bar enter "alaska legislature" or go to http://w3.legis.state.ak.us. This will take you to their home page. At the very bottom of the page, under quick links, choose "Public Opinion Message".
2. On the new page use the "Normal Login Box" and fill in your personal info. Click "Submit Information" to continue
3. On the Contact Information page, fill in your contact info and click "Choose Recipients"
4. On the recipients page below choose "Send to All Legislators" then click "Write Message"
5. On the message page type your message of support for the three appointees. Skip the BillRoot and Opinion boxes. In the "Subject" box, use scroll down with keyboard or mouse and choose "Appointments". Click "Finished" to send the message.

Please send your message ASAP! After the show the commercial fishermen put on yesterday, our legislators need to hear from us dipnetters pronto or our desired candidates could lose out. A balanced BOF will be much more likely to consider CDA proposals seriously.

Like the Beatles song goes, Don't Let Me Down!

Thanks for your help,

Chuck Derrick, President
Chitina Dipnetters Association
PO Box 72665
Fairbanks, AK 99707
cderrick@chitinadipnetters.com

Chitina dipnetters:

Senators Kawasaki, Hughes, Wilson and Wielechowski introduced SB99 on Tuesday providing priority to personal use fisheries. Senator Kawasaki urgently needs to receive emails of support from dipnetters in order to get a committee hearing for the bill. The United Fishermen of Alaska (the statewide commercial fisheries organization) is giving him a rough time over his sponsorship of the bill and they would like nothing better than to see this die in committee.

This is one of those times when I need your help. Please take the time to send an email or phone call to Senator Kawaski and/or the other sponsors in support of this bill. Let him know how important the Chitina personal use dip net fishery is to you and how assigning dipnetters' priority access to the salmon resource helps ensure Alaskans can feed themselves.

The text of SB99 is below. The Alaska State Legislature's website tracks the bill here.

Thanks for your help,

Chuck Derrick, President
Chitina Dipnetters Association
PO Box 72665
Fairbanks, AK 99707
cderrick@chitinadipnetters.com

March 6, 2019

Chitina dipnetters:

Hope you are enjoying the mild winter we are having and that you are getting outdoors to take advantage of the extended spring daylight hours without freezing off your keester.

The 2018 dip net season proved to be a tough one what with the threat of total season closure and the shortened weekly dipping periods. This, coupled with the many Copper River high water periods and erratic up and down sockeye run made it hard to decide on the right time to head to Chitina to harvest your salmon. The difficult season was reflected in the number of Chitina Personal Use Permits issued (4,864 vs the average 9,000 - 10,000) and in the fishery salmon harvest (78,000 sockeyes vs recent annual harvests of approximately 150,000). In 2018 we harvested a total of 1,200 king salmon. Kings were plentiful because of a healthy in-river run due in part to the commercial fishing shutdown necessitated by low sockeye returns. I hope those who made the trip to Chitina fared well.

The 2019 forecast for the Copper River salmon run is 1.4 million sockeye, just slightly above the 1.2 million for 2018, and 55,000 kings. These are mid range numbers and as we all know forecasts are forecasts and at best an educated guess.

On February 8th and 9th, CDA board member Jeremy Lindgren and I attended a Copper River salmon harvest users round table discussion held in the Copper River Valley at Tazlina. The meeting was arranged and paid for by the Copper River Watershed Project, a non-profit group out of Cordova. This meeting was a follow-up to the first user round table discussion held during the 2017 Board of Fisheries meeting in Valdez. Members from all user groups (commercial, subsistence, personal use, sport as well as hatchery personnel) were present. Salmon allocation discussion was off limits. We concentrated on ideas everyone could get behind to ensure ADF&G has our mutual support to garner funding for projects to increase the accuracy of forecasts, preserve and enhance the Copper River salmon runs and better understand ocean factors contributing to smaller salmon returns in many parts of the state. Getting representatives from the user groups talking face to face, away from the sometimes contentious BOF meetings, was a plus.

On March 4, I met with DOT and ADF&G representatives to discuss Chitina Personal Use dip net permit funds. DOT figures they have completed rehabilitation work on a third of the trail between O'Brien and Haley Creeks (pictures viewable on the CDA website www.chitinadipnetters.com). Weather permitting, they will continue work this spring and fall. The garbage and toilet contract for the fishery totaled $60,000 for 2018, down from $66,000 in 2017 due to the installation of vaulted toilets.

The Fairbanks Outdoor Show will be held at the Carlson Center on April 26-28. CDA will again have a booth at the show and conduct a Chitina dipnetting seminar. Stop by and shoot the dipnetting breeze. It's also an excellent opportunity to renew your CDA annual dues for $20. We will have pictures of the DOT trail work and an array of CDA apparel. We will again need CDA members to help fill 2-3 hour booth sitting time slots. If you could help us out at our booth, please contact Paul Harrell at 488-7769. If no answer, please leave a message.

The CDA annual membership meeting will be on Tuesday May 14 at 7PM in the Tanana Valley Sportsmens Association (TVSA) clubhouse (1230 TVSA Way) off Boat St. on the way to Compeaus. It's a fun time to hob nob with other dipnetters and hear the latest on our fishery from ADF&G and DOT representatives. Please consider putting your name in during nominations and election of new CDA board members. Door prizes will be drawn throughout the meeting. Food and drinks will be served at intermission. Bring your friends!

2019 CDA $20 annual memberships can be paid at our website www.chitinadipnetters.com, at the Outdoor Show, at the CDA annual membership meeting or mailed in to the address below. Thank you in advance for your continued support.

Chuck Derrick, President
Chitina Dipnetters Association
PO Box 72665
Fairbanks, AK 99707
cderrick@chitinadipnetters.com
907-488-3093

Chitina Dipnetters Association Members:

I hope you had a successful Chitina dipnetting experience this year even though the sockeye salmon run numbers were low and the run was very late. That and the frequent high water episodes on the Copper River coupled with reduced weekly fishing time periods made for a challenging dip net harvest. In the positive, there were some large sockeyes this year.

Several of you have asked about progress on trail improvements between O'Brien and Haley Creeks using part of the monies from the $15 Chitina dip net permit fee. This spring before dip net season opened, manual brushing was completed all the way to Haley Creek. This October, the DOT Tazlina crew brought an excavator and a small dozer in to deal with trouble spots up to mile 5.13. I have attached several example pictures of the work they completed. Picture 1 shows before their work on one of the worst spots (mile 5.13), where ATV riders were forced to winch up over large sloping slabs of rock. Picture 2 shows the area after the DOT work. Quite a change. I was told they used some very large rock underneath the fill to stabilize the trail bed. Pictures 3 and 4 are examples of their dozer work smoothing out the trail prior to mile 5.13. They made the trail double wide to that point. More pictures of their work are available for viewing on our website, http://chitinadipnetters.com.

In anticipation of continuing work next summer, DOT will be working this winter to obtain the permits for the remainder of the trail to Haley Creek. DOT asked me to request our members' feedback or suggestions on their work. If you have any, email them to me and I will forward your comments to the Tazlina crew.

I am happy to report that Reed Morisky, the interior Alaska representative on the Board of Fisheries, was elected as chairman of the Board by his fellow members. This is great news for us! Reed has been a strong advocate of dipnetting and sport fishing. Thank you, Reed, for taking on this responsibility.

Christmas will be upon us before you know it! The CDA website store has some awesome CDA apparel that makes great Christmas gifts for the dipnetters on your list. Or, how about a CDA membership? It's only a couple clicks away.

Here's hoping you are enjoying the fruits of your dipnetting efforts and that you have a fun time during the upcoming holidays.

Chuck Derrick, president
The Chitina Dipnetters Association
cderrick@chitinadipnetters.com

Dipnetters:

Please join your fellow outdoors enthusiasts for a River Rally and fundraiser for John Sturgeon from 5:00-7:30pm on Thursday, July 5, at The Binkley Room in Pikes Waterfront Lodge Hotel, Fairbanks.

As many of you already know, John has been fighting the National Park Service in court since 2007 over being cited for use of his small hovercraft to access his long time moose hunting camp on the Nation River, which runs through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to once again hear his case. A win for John could mean the return of management to the State of Alaska of all navigable waters within the the state. A very important case for anyone who uses Alaska waters for access.

John has spent a very large sum of his own money to fight the Feds on their claim. This is a fight with repercussions for all of us outdoor users in Alaska and deserving of a monetary donation to support his case.

If you cannot make it to the rally, please visit the Alaska Outdoor Council website at www.alaskaoutdoorcouncil.org to make a donation and to learn more about John's case.

Chuck Derrick, President
The Chitina Dipnetters Assn.
cderrick@chitinadipnetters.com

Chitina Dipnetter Association Members:

It's the end of March, snow is starting to melt off the roof and off my dipnets hanging on the outside wall of my shop. I passed by them today and the nets reminded me that it is time to send out an information email to CDA members.

BOF Meeting

Paul Harrell, CDA Vice-President, and I attended the December 1-5 Copper River/Prince William Sound Board of Fisheries (BOF) meeting in Valdez. We were able to convince the BOF to rescind a regulation that has been on the books since 1997. That regulation reduced the annual Copper River Personal Use Dip net Fishery (CPUDF) allocation from 100,000-150,000 to 50,000 if the Copper River District commercial fleet is ever prohibited from fishing for 13 or more consecutive days. That is as much as a permanent two thirds allocation reduction for a potentially short term commercial problem. CDA has been attempting to overturn this rule since its inception in 1997 and were finally successful.

Dipnet Fee Results

CDA, in 2016, pushed for a $15 Chitina dipnet permit fee that was approved by the State Legislator to begin in 2017. Collected funds are earmarked for use in the Chitina dipnet fishery. To ensure proper use of the money, CDA met with Tim Viavant of the ADF&G Sport Fish division and Jason Sakalaskis of DOT on February 20 to discuss the expenditure of the 2017 Chitina Dip Net Permit Fees. Somewhat over 9,500 CPUDF permits were issued for the 2017 season, generating $142,500 in receipts. $7500 went to vendor fees (businesses that issue permits). DOT spent $48,750 to cover the 2017 garbage and toilet contract (referred to as the DOT wayside maintenance contract) and $34,000 on time and equipment for the O'Brien to Haley Creek trail reconstruction project this fall. Trail work included brushing and debris removal from O'Brien Creek to mile 4.5. Money remaining from the 2017 permit receipts are to be rolled over to 2018 and made available to DOT. Prior to the opening of the 2018 CPUDF season, DOT plans to extend their trail reconstruction work to mile 5.1, an area requiring mechanical brushing and excavator work. DOT is shooting for a trail wide enough to pass two side by side ATVs. As we had hoped, the $15 dipnet fee advocated for by the CDA is leading to a safe, usable trail to Haley Creek.

Board of Fish nomination

Governor Bill Walker recently nominated Duncan Fields, a Kodiak commercial fisherman, to replace retiring Al Cain, an Anchorage area sport/personal use representative, on the Alaska Board of Fisheries. Filling the seat of a sport representative with a commercial fisherman destroys the existing balance of the board (3 commercial, 3 sport/p.u. and 1 subsistence). The Chitina Dipnetters Association, in conjunction with 15 other concerned groups, became signatory on a letter asking the Legislature to not confirm Mr. Duncan. CDA also sent a letter to the Interior delegation requesting non-confirmation. Hopefully enough pressure is applied and Governor Walker will pull the nomination of Mr. Fields and nominate someone better representative of the sport and personal use fisheries of Alaska. We will keep you posted!

Copper River salmon forecast

ADF&G has issued a 2018 forecast for the Copper River of 43,000 Chinook salmon and 1.5 million sockeyes. If the chinook numbers hold to forecast, there should be no king restriction for CPUDF users this year. Sockeye numbers are forecast about the same as the 2017 run. As we all know from the 2017 experience, forecasts are just forecasts, so everything is still up in the air.

Fairbanks Outdoor Show

The Fairbanks Outdoor Show will take place April 20-22 at the Carlson Center. CDA will have a booth at the show again. We will conduct a dipnetting seminar. We need help manning the CDA booth. It is a lot of fun and slots are only 2-3 hours duration. Come help us inform the public and grow our organization. Contact Paul Harrell at 907-388-7227 via voice or text and Paul will get back to you.

Membership Drive

In December, 2017, the CDA board voted to reduce the annual CDA membership fee from $25 to $20. Our 2018 membership drive is underway. We plan on awarding over $3,000 worth of prizes to new and renewing members. Each purchased membership will be automatically entered in our drawings. Prize drawings will be spaced throughout the dip net season with a grand prize of a 45-70 caliber guide gun (or cash equivalent) to be given away in August. We are working on an idea to award an extra ticket towards the grand prize to any member who brings in 3 addition members. In 2017 we had a membership of 333 and we would like to triple that to 999 in 2018. With 9,500 dip net permits issued in 2017 that leaves a lot of additional future members to generate those extra grand prize tickets. Memberships will be available at the CDA booth at the Fairbanks Outdoor Show or online at http://www.chitinadipnetters.com.

CDA Annual Meeting

The CDA 2018 annual meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 8, at the TVSA clubhouse off Boat Street. Representatives will be present from ADF&G sport fish division as well from DOT to answer all your questions concerning the 2018 dip net season, permit fee funds and the O'Brien - Haley Creek trail reconstruction project. Refreshments and snacks from Interior Fish Processors will be served. Door prizes will be awarded throughout the meeting. Come and share a fun night with your fellow dipnetters.

Hats!

For 2018 we have added CDA embroidered logo hats to our apparel lineup. Hats are $20 or $15 when bought in conjunction with a new or renewing membership. Pictures of the hat will soon be on our website.

Thank you for being a CDA member and please take the time now to renew your membership for 2018.

Chuck Derrick, President
cderrick@chitinadipnetters.com