December 16, 2022 — The Alaska Board of Fisheries snuffed out proposals that would have limited the length of towlines between Bristol Bay drift vessels and their nets to 100 feet, opting instead to set the maximum towline length to 600 feet at its December meeting. But the board extended the distance that set gill nets can fish offshore in Bristol Bay.
The panel also voted down proposals that would have done away with permit stacking on drift vessels as it wrapped up its meetings for 2022.
In all, 62 proposals had been submitted for consideration in December, some of which saw no action and others which pertained to sport fishing or subsistence harvest regulations in Bristol Bay.
Previous regulations permitted tow lines of unlimited length between drift boats and their nets. Numerous proposals in this most recent meeting cycle specified a limit of 100 feet with the reasoning that shallow draft boats in recent years have adopted the tactic of setting nets with their shoreward ends in the mud on a falling tide. The long towlines enable the boats to hover offshore while the nets load up with salmon that swim in the first few inches of water when the tide turns to the flood.