Fish fight.

• Author: Ess, Charlie
• Position: Alaska salmon fisheries and recreational fishers

Commercial fishers dodged a bullet when the F.I.S.H. initiative was pulled from the November ballot. The war, though, is far from over.

Baffling Alaska's Board of Fisheries, spawning court cases, and generating enough signatures to get on an election ballot, Alaska's salmon sentiments run deeper than ever when it comes to allocating fish between sport and commercial interests.

While it's a bit cynical to assume that wherever there is a fish there will be a fish fight, it isn't hard to forecast the tension that lies ahead when an increasing number of users want bigger shares of the state's salmon crop.

On one side are the commercial salmon fishers, whose population has remained stable at around 12,000 permit holders in 26 different salmon fisheries since a limited-entry licensing system was imposed in 1975. Increasing the amount of fish allowed past their nets and into the hands of sport anglers would gouge the profits out of their livelihood, they say. On the other side is a growing population of anglers and other personal users, who contend that the commercial fishers consistently take 97 percent of the statewide salmon spoils, leaving too little for their drying racks, smokers, canners and freezers.

The basic argument about who gets how much dates back decades, but the most recent volley aimed at shifting the present allocation was fired by pro-angling groups in the Kenai and Mat-Su boroughs. Dissatisfied with inaction by the Board of Fisheries, they generated a petition that would have put the question up for a public vote on Nov. 5. But two months before it was to appear on the ballot, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional.

Had it made it onto the ballot and passed, the initiative, named for the group, Fairness In Salmon Harvest (F.I.S.H.), would have allocated 5 percent of the projected statewide harvest and assigned a priority in achieving that harvest to "consumptive users." Sponsors of the measure defined consumptive users as subsistence users and personal users, the latter of which includes sport fishers.

The idea began a year ago in September when angling groups hit the ground running in a drive to gather enough signatures to get the initiative certified and onto this year's ballot. Two months after its genesis, the idea had gathered 17,000 signatures - more than 75 percent of the number needed to get on the ballot.

The Legislature could have killed it by introducing a bill of similar language, and the Board of Fisheries could have preempted it by adopting the anglers' request into regulation. To that end, and hoping that both sides could compromise in the form of a proposal to the board at its meeting this past February, Gov. Tony Knowles called for a mediation panel made up of opposing players. Commercial fishing representatives walked away from the table, refusing to negotiate unless the initiative was withdrawn.

That the board reduced commercial fishing time and put another 100,000 sockeye in the Kenai River as a result of that February meeting did little to appease anglers seeking a new management plan. "I think the board has been too focused on a number," says Ben Ellis, executive director of the Kenai River Sportfishing Association. "It's not the number, but how that number is...