March 27, 2023 — When Lisa Gabriel was 22, she and her husband, Brian, now the mayor of Kenai, bought their first commercial setnet permit, worth $35,000.
The year was 1987 and Gabriel, pregnant with her third child, flew with Brian in a privately chartered plane to Anchorage, where they met up with a Cook Inlet fisherman who was selling his permit. After the papers were signed and the permit transferred, Brian and Lisa flew back to Kenai.
“We just jumped in a plane because that’s what we needed to do,” she said.
They have been commercial setnetting in the inlet ever since. The pair are fishing for sockeye but also harvest other kinds of fish, including chinook, or king, salmon. This year, however, they’re two of the hundreds of east side setnet fishers in upper Cook Inlet whose nets may stay out of the water entirely.
That’s because of an unprecedented preseason closure of the fishery by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game earlier this month. Among other things, 11 emergency orders handed down by the department completely closed the east side setnet fishery this season, as well as the Kenai River and Cook Inlet to sport fishing for king salmon.
The department issued those orders after preseason forecasts suggested that Kenai River late run would see only 13,630 king salmon longer than 34 inches, or “large” fish. Because that forecast falls below the department’s optimal escapement goal of at least 15,000 fish, the Kenai River’s late-run king salmon sport fishery was closed.
The closure of the fisheries threatens to upend not just the livelihood of anglers in the inlet, but a way of life for those who have spent decades working in the setnet industries.
Read the full article at Peninsula Clarion