by The Associated Press
Monday, February 01, 2010
FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- The Alaska Board of Fisheries took a step toward rebuilding the king salmon run on the Yukon River.
The board voted Sunday to prohibit subsistence and commercial fishermen from using gillnets with a mesh larger than 7.5 inches, starting in 2011.
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports most fishermen on the Yukon use nets with 8.5-inch mesh to specifically target big kings.
The goal of the regulation is to allow more of the larger king salmon to spawn.
The Yukon River chinook run feeds the largest subsistence fishery in the state. It has shrunk in recent years. State fish managers have not allowed any commercial fishing the past two years and subsistence fishing was cut in half this past season.
