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Date Posted: 04:45:34 04/28/04 Wed
Author: Don Johnson
Subject: Dear Representative HB 452 comments, Whales Eye Lodge

Dear Representative HB 452 comments, Whales Eye Lodge

Alaska State House of Representatives

Labor and Commerce Committee

Representative Tom Anderson, Chair

Dear Representative,

I respectfully submit these comments regarding HB 452. My family and I own and operate a small, four guest sport fishing lodge on Shelter Island near Juneau. My wife, my son and I bought the land, cleared it, and built our home and lodge over the last eighteen years. Every dollar of every permanent fund dividend check we received is invested in our family business.

When we are not fishing with our guests we are finding them. We spend our own money marketing our lodge to out of state clients. We convince them to spend their dollars to visit Alaska. They buy airline tickets, stay at local hotels, pay for fish processing and take gifts back to their loved ones. The food they eat, the gas I burn, my tackle, lodge and boat maintenance, nearly every dollar we generate finds its way back into the local economy.

We love our work and we believe we conduct our business with the highest integrity in regard to the State of Alaska and the Department of Fish and Game. Although we would not trade our way of life, our income level falls well below the poverty level for Alaska and the nation. We see the implications of this Bill as threatening to our home and business. Please take a moment to review our concerns.

Among other things this Bill will:

Officially recognize the Guided Sport Industry as separate from other sport fish users and place them under the authority of Sport Fish Division.
Require that we pay 100.00 for a guide business license and 50.00 per guide.
Require that we report the names and address and license numbers of our clients to the Department every month.

These are some of the implications I see regarding this new regulation.

Separate Guided Sport Fish Designation

As a recognized user group under this new law, what would we be allowed to catch? King salmon are allocated to commercial fish and sport fish. Currently there is no category for guided sport fish. How will the allocation be cut for us? I am sure that the Trollers aren’t going to want to give us any of theirs.

This bill may not be a big issue for the halibut boats or river lodges up north but it has huge implications for us in Southeast who have to live with treaty fish and salmon allocations. When resources become limited who do you think will be shut down first? The Alaska Constitution has provisions set forth in the event of a shortage and they don’t include a separate “guided sport fish” provision. It would require a constitutional amendment for the guided sport fishery even be recognized in that pecking order.

Under this new law the guided sport fishing industry will have to go to the Board of Fish for allocation. It will require we start from scratch against what many of us consider to be a stacked Board to get any King Salmon at all. Our advocate before the board, Sport Fish Division, is mandated to look out for the interests of the unguided fishers first. I would feel more comfortable under Commercial Fisheries than Sport Fish. The best we will ever be under Sport Fish is the ugly stepsister of their real duty.

Special designation will make it easy to make special closures--divide and conquer. This legislation sounds like it originated in the halls of the Alaska Trollers Association. In Southeast we have fought this battle many times over the last two decades. Always it has been considered wiser to keep guided and Non-guided sport fisheries as one.



Do they want to call our clients and question them about us? Perhaps they want to check our guest’s memory against our logs. I write my log as I go and complete it each day before the clients or the fish leave the boat (or I get a $200.00 fine, no excuses). It is double checked by creel data that is collected at the dock and we have regular boardings by enforcement on the water. Why do they need more than that?

I guess it boils down to trust. They don’t believe us. When Sport Fish first started the log book program we recorded our halibut data and the stats came in higher then they thought. The Department, in a public document to the North Pacific Halibut Commission announced that the discrepancy existed because we lied. They flat declared that we over reported our halibut. Do they think we are criminals? Believe me, criminals make a lot more money and do a lot less work.

I don’t want them calling my guests and interrogating them. I log their catch on the spot under threat of fine. That is more accurate than what somebody remembers who stayed with me 5 days two months ago. And if there is a discrepancy—then what, I get fined on my client’s words? My client is forced to testify against me. What kind of relationship does that encourage when every guest is a potential witness against me, wittingly, willingly or not.

What other questions are they going to ask about me? Did I wait three minutes before reminding them to log their king on their license? Enforcement changes their minds on what they consider a violation regularly. One year they say the captain can set the hook and pass the rod to the client. The next year they are handing out tickets for it. As hard as we honestly try, if held under a microscope, or several different microscopes, none of us are perfect.

Let the state hold us to the same standards they use upon themselves—no more no less. This is reminiscent of the stories I heard in grade school about how the Communist Russians asked school children what their parents talked about at home so they could haul the parents away to concentration camps if they criticized the state.

I see no good in this “Fish Inquisition”. A lot of my guests are old and have no idea of the devious designs of Enforcement. They will not like the inquiries. It is bad press for the whole industry and the state has other tools, mentioned above, to secure the public interest it is charged with. The only use for a mailing list of my clients is to specifically target my guests for questioning. Even the IRS can’t use these tactics. Ironically it is called a “fishing expedition” when a government agency indiscriminately digs in your records to see if there “might” be a violation.

Like the log book fines, innocent mistakes will undoubtedly be the most frequent “crime” that will come of it. I have no reason to lie on my logs. You can’t automatically punish everybody because someone might cheat, this is America not Iran.

Many of us in Juneau can remember in 1998 a Charter Boat Owners meeting with Mark Schwan, Rocky Holms and Rob Bentz of Sport Fish Division and a representative from enforcement. They promised us, assured us, and insisted that the log books would NEVER become an enforcement issue. They stood before us and said they wanted the data only; they weren’t going to ticket us for small infractions it would only be enforced if one of us were really behind. “Like a week or so.”

As we all know now that the slightest infraction of the log book is enforced like the Old Testament. You could be out of town dealing with a family death (this has happened) and what do they say? The department says, “Sorry, it’s out of our hands.” Enforcement says “It’s the law.”

The sad part is they don’t even use the data to calculate rod hours (something we could benefit by). While we are fined for being late in submitting our logs they let the log sheets pile up in the harbormaster’s office week after week to the point the Auke Bay Harbormaster kicked Sport Fish out of the office. They made them put a box outside the office for the logs.

Show me one state employee who will work under the same standard they hold us to. One pencil stroke wrong or one day late and they get a $200.00 fine, no excuses. The unions would not allow it. Not one judge or policeman, not one legislator works under these draconian penalties. The very people who hold our feet to the coals are not required to adhere to the same standards themselves.

I see this legislation is a noose around my neck. I stand to gain NOTHING and lose my license and my livelihood for a minor infraction. I see no underlying public interest in it. I see no gain for the average sport fisher and I surely see no benefit for me as a guided sport fishing business owner.

The bill was introduced late in the session with little time to consider the consequences. I strongly urge that a working group comprised of the guided sport fishing industry and Sport Fish Division be formed to review the implications and intentions of this bill and that a more well thought out version be considered for next session. Our future hangs in the balance.

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,
Rick Bierman
Karen Bierman
Jessey Bierman
Owners,
Whales Eye Lodge

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