The Upper Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory Committee will meet at 5 p.m. Sept. 13 to revisit discussion of reciprocal license agreements with Canada.
The committee will also discuss crab harvests, duck hunting season and regulatory proposals.
At its Feb. 22 meeting, the committee voted unanimously to write letters to the boards of Fish and Game and the Alaska Legislature asking the state to terminate its reciprocal fishing license agreement with the Yukon Territory, which allows Canadians and Alaskans to buy fishing licenses in each other’s countries for the same prices as locals.
Committee member Julia Heinz, who made the motion to write the letters, said the letters were drafted but not sent because chair Tim McDonough decided the issue could use more discussion. Since the legislative session was over by the time the letters were ready, it wasn’t a time-sensitive issue, Heinz said.
“To me, I don’t think we should have a reciprocal license, but I’m open to other points of view and if I had other information I could change my opinion. But at this point, I would prefer for them to have to pay for a full license,” Heinz said.
Doug Olerud of Olerud’s Market Center said McDonough approached him later and asked if he would come to the next committee meeting to give a business owner’s perspective on the reciprocal licenses.
“I don’t think they should be writing to Fish and Game asking them to rescind the reciprocal licenses, because Yukoners are a very steady source of tourism into Haines and I think it is bad form to tell your closest neighbors and people that spend money here that we don’t want you to come here,” Olerud said.
The committee will also discuss the upcoming duck hunting season, which begins Sept. 15.
Heinz said local waterfowl hunters have been itching for a return to the Sept. 1 start date, and the committee will consider submitting a proposal to Fish and Game requesting the change for the northern Lynn Canal.
“The thought is that it isn’t fair to people in the northern Lynn Canal because everything freezes up here earlier,” Heinz said.
Area biologist Ryan Scott said the Board of Game changed the start date from Sept. 1 to Sept. 15 in 2008 after it received several proposals requesting the change. The department also conducted a survey in 2006 to measure where Southeast hunters stood on the issue.
Survey data indicated that while Juneau and northern Lynn Canal hunters wanted to keep the season the same (Sept. 1 through Dec. 16), hunters on the outer coast and in southern Southeast leaned toward the later season. In total, 65 percent of respondents wanted to change the season, so the board pushed the 107-day season forward by two weeks.
Asking for a split season for the northern Lynn Canal might be tricky, though, Scott said, as it would create an additional waterfowl hunting zone. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has to approve zone changes, prefers maintaining fewer hunting zones and voted in 1998 not to make any changes.
“While it may be possible to split the region, creating a new waterfowl hunting zone, it is more likely that a lump sum (107 days) change would be considered,” Scott said.
Regarding discussion of crab harvests at the upcoming meeting, the committee intends to delve deeper into possible solutions to the battle between subsistence users and commercial crabbers in upper Lynn Canal.
Brainstormed ideas at February’s meeting included simply doing nothing, excluding fishermen with larger pot permits from certain areas, and/or implementing a minimum distance commercial crabbers must stay away from certain zones.
“There are a certain number of crab out there and everybody wants a chunk of it, but I think there should be some solution or compromise where users can have enough crab and the stocks can be saved,” Heinz said.