In a state full of unique riparian systems, Redoubt Lake is pretty unique. It’s nine feet above sea level, but quite deep – so the bottom of the lake is saltwater, and the top is fresh.
It supports a relatively small-but-robust population of sockeye, and a large population of Sitkans who make the 17-mile skiff ride every summer to the falls to dipnet for salmon.
But, the characteristics that make Redoubt unique, also make it fragile. Calvin Casipit, with the Southeast Subsistence Regional Advisory Council, explained that there is such a thing as too many fish.
“Redoubt Lake the last couple of years has had a huge surplus of sockeye salmon,” said Casipit. “According to the numbers that I have here, in ‘24 there were 210,000 Sockeye through the weir. And the weir is above all the fisheries. So this is after all the harvest has been taken. In ‘23 it was 148,009, in 2019 it was 56,020, in ‘18 it was 71,000. This is above the optimal escapement goals of 7,000 to 25,000 sockeye salmon.”
So proposal 135, which would allow subsistence harvesters to use seine and gillnets, is more than just a way to support local human diets. It’s also a management tool to keep escapements at optimal levels.
Heather Bauscher, who formerly chaired the Sitka Fish & Game Advisory Committee, and now serves on the Petersburg AC, filled in some of this detail for the board.
“It’s pretty unique,” said Bauscher. “It’s a meromictic lake. It doesn’t turn over like a normal fresh water system. There’s a long history of having fertilized that lake to help support the sockeye, but now the sockeye returns are considerable to the point that they’re worried about too many fish coming back and crashing the system.”
The Sitka Ranger District of the US Forest Service has been fertilizing Redoubt Lake for the past two decades or more, and funding for the program – now more than ever – is unreliable. All the more reason to keep the number of fish entering the lake at or below its carrying capacity of 25,000.
The Board of Fish saw wisdom in this, but had concerns over execution.
The daily harvest limits at Redoubt usually start low, at 10 or 25 fish per permit holder at the beginning of the summer, and then increase to 100 per day in July.
Board member Gerad Godfrey, from Eagle River, was concerned that harvesters would blow right through these limits if they were allowed to use seines or gillnets.
“You can’t control your harvest level with gillnet or seine – you get what’s in the water,” he said. “And what if it’s an overharvest? That’s my concern. It far exceeds your subsistence, now your mortality rate of throwing fish back – obviously some of them will survive – and the weight of the bag doesn’t kill him.”
This has been a problem in some other sockeye systems where nets already are allowed, and several permit holders join forces to seine, and lose count of their fish.
Keenan Sanderson, with the Ketchikan Tlingit & Haida Community Council, said Redoubt harvesters would almost certainly use small beach seines, or similar gear, and that they’d get the hang of it.
“All you have to do is just let down the rings and let the fish swim over the corks once you know you have what you can actually keep for your possession limits,” he said. “In terms of seining, I don’t think there’s a huge issue with mortality, unless you’re being very reckless with it.”
Other board members expressed concerns over possible user conflict, as the base of the falls can become crowded with subsistence dipnetters and sport fishermen. The proposal was amended with language that would restrict the use of seine and gillnets to beyond 100 yards seaward of the falls.
That settled it for board members like Tom Carpenter, of Cordova.
“When I looked at the escapement levels in this particular system, I mean, I wish a lot of places had this problem, quite frankly,” he said, “but understanding that this gives more opportunity, there’s no conservation concern associated with it, the use of a seine, although it may be a new tool for a lot of people, I think that the ability to wrap up too many fish and release them is fairly easily done, so I’ll be supporting it.”
The Board of Fish passed proposal 135 unanimously. The new regs allowing the use of seine and gillnets in the subsistence sockeye fishery at Redoubt Lake go into effect this summer.
