Proposals 41 and 42 were submitted to the board to pair restrictions in the commercial and sport fisheries after restrictions to the sport fishery due to low early season inriver passage of king salmon combined with sometimes intense fishing for sockeye in the Nushagak District in the mid-2010’s. In response to the proposals, the board: •Removed several triggers in the Nushagak-Mulchatna River King Salmon Management Plan that affected the sport fishery, to provide managers with more flexibility in dealing with sometime inaccurate information •Tabled Proposals 41 and 42 •Created a special board committee to develop a comprehensive solution to Chinook salmon management •Charged the committee with reporting back to the board at its March, 2020 Statewide Meeting. The Bristol Bay Science and Research Institute (BBSRI) committed to supporting the committee’s work through a stakeholder-led technical analysis of options for the committee to consider.

The committee was originally comprised of board members Payton, Morisky and Ruffner. The board released a request for committee nominations of members of the public January 31, 2019. The board received 14 letters of interest from which they chose eight people to represent the stakeholder groups involved with the Nushagak River king salmon fisheries.

The committee first met in Anchorage on October 21, 2019, to get underway and present preliminary analyses of the fishery’s history and technical challenges associated with monitoring and managing the fishery. Committee members were provided a questionnaire about challenges and problems each saw with respect to king salmon management, what constituted success in their fishery, and what problems might be addressed by changes in the Plan and/or stock assessment programs. This meeting was distinct from subsequent committee meetings in that attendance was very large, and this was the only meeting attended by the board members.

Subsets of the full committee met with the BBSRI Study Team in December 2019 (Anchorage; sport/commercial) and February 2020 (Dillingham; commercial, subsistence, sport). These break-out meetings produced initial lists of 1) the challenges faced by the Nushagak king salmon fisheries, and 2) what defined success from each stakeholders’ perspectives. The meetings also provided initial ideas for (3) possible management objectives to address challenges and meet measures of success in each fishery, and (4) possible regulatory actions and non-regulatory information or actions needed to achieve management objectives. The discussions identified much of the technical analysis for the Study Team to examine. COVID-19 precluded an in-person meeting for the entire committee scheduled for April 2020 in King Salmon.

At the Upper Cook Inlet meeting in February 2020, the Board disbanded the formal committee and strongly encouraged stakeholders remaining on the committee to continue to work together in preparation for the next in-cycle Bristol Bay meeting in 2021. BBSRI reasserted its commitment to serve the committee and move toward its original mission outlined in the charge statement: a comprehensive solution to the Plan. The committee makeup remained the same as selected by the board initially on February 19, 2020, minus the board members.

The committee and subsets met 15 times between December 2019 and April 2022. Between meetings the Study Team pulled together committee work products and prepared goals, objectives, and agendas for follow-on meetings. Pandemic-related constraints on travel and in-person meetings precluded many of the committee meetings from being in person. The committee met via video conference December 17 and 18, 2020 to review the 2020 fisheries and refine challenges, management objectives, measures of success, possible action item, and non-regulatory information needs. The committee met again January 14, 2021, to review an early draft report describing the committee’s work and begin a focused review and discussion of possible regulatory changes to the Plan that would continue through March 2021. Subsequent meetings resulted in a refined list of possible management actions with consensus by the time the committee concluded for the winter. The Study Team met with ADF&G in April 2021 to discuss those management actions with consensus from the committee at the time.

The committee reconvened in January 2022 to discuss and work toward a regulatory proposal incorporating actions with committee consensus and identify additional information or programs needed in addition to regulation changes (i.e., non-regulatory recommendations). The committee reviewed the 2021 fishing season, 2022 sockeye salmon forecast, updated tables from the Historical Report that included 2020-2021 data, and ADF&G input on the possible management actions under consideration by the committee. The Study Team presented and discussed with the committee 1) impacts of different management triggers for the Wood and Nushagak river to delay the onset of the commercial fishery in the Nushagak District, and 2) the effects of mesh size on exploitation rates. Other discussion topics included plans for BBSRI’s 2022 test fishery in the Nushagak District and input the Study Team had received from ADF&G concerning a Nushagak sockeye salmon management trigger. With input from ADF&G and the committee, the Study Team further refined the list of management actions to put forward in the form of a regulatory proposal in April 2022. The committee also raised issues to improve king salmon management that require action outside of the Nushagak-Mulchatna River King Salmon Plan, including improving inseason management and monitoring programs. Since some of the greatest fishery challenges/problems cannot be addressed by changes to the management Plan alone, the committee felt strongly that these should not be ignored in a search for comprehensive solutions. Hence, the inclusion of these non-regulatory recommendations in the committee’s work products.

In September 2022 the BBSRI Study Team finalized Historical Review of Nushagak River King Salmon Management (Brookover 2022) after incorporating review comments received from committee members and ADF&G. The report was distributed to contributing ADF&G staff members, ADF&G Board Section and the NAC to serve as a historical reference for the upcoming board meetings. An earlier draft version was made available to, and used by, the NRKS Committee in 2019 for the same purpose. The final version was later submitted to the board record in November, prior to the scheduled Bristol Bay meeting (PC54).

Nushagak King Salmon Committee Report The BBSRI Study Team finalized the Summary of Outcomes from the Committee to Examine the Nushagak-Mulchatna King Salmon Management Plan, 2019-2022 (Brookover et al., 2022) and submitted it to the board’s record November 14, 2022, for the upcoming Bristol Bay meeting (PC53). The report documents the process and outcomes from the committee that ultimately led to the submittal of Proposal 11 directed at improving management, and non-regulatory recommendations aimed at improving stock assessment. ADF&G Action Plan On November 23, ADF&G finalized and submitted Nushagak River King Salmon Stock Status and Action Plan to the board (RC4). The Action Plan presented options for potential management actions for the commercial, sport and subsistence fisheries. It also presented research projects for Nushagak River king salmon, and proposed criteria for removing (delisting) the SOC status designation in the future Board Meeting Staff reports concerning Nushagak River king salmon at the Bristol Bay meeting were substantive, informative and, according to one board member, “refreshing.” Among the reports, staff provided information on the stock status of Nushagak king and sockeye salmon, escapement goal reviews for the same (and other) stocks, management of Nushagak River king salmon, results of a recent hooking mortality study conducted for Nushagak king salmon, a recently developed run reconstruction model, and a review of the recently submitted Nushagak River King Salmon Stock Status and Action Plan. Nushagak king salmon issues were not ripe for deliberation. The recent SOC designation, lack of availability of the pending ADF&G Action Plan, complexity of problems with king salmon management, “poor” state of king salmon stock assessment, and questions with several proposed management actions ultimately led the board to defer action to the March 2023 Statewide Meeting. Although regulatory action was deferred, much of the substantive information provided by the department for Nushagak River king salmon during the cycle was provided through the staff reports at the Bristol Bay meeting.

Nushagak King Salmon Committee Report The BBSRI Study Team finalized the Summary of Outcomes from the Committee to Examine the Nushagak-Mulchatna King Salmon Management Plan, 2019-2022 (Brookover et al., 2022) and submitted it to the board’s record November 14, 2022, for the upcoming Bristol Bay meeting (PC53). The report documents the process and outcomes from the committee that ultimately led to the submittal of Proposal 11 directed at improving management, and non-regulatory recommendations aimed at improving stock assessment.

After the Bristol Bay Meeting, the Study Team met with ADF&G staff over numerous occasions to discuss elements in ADF&G’s proposed Action Plan for further consideration. The NAC met and discussed the Nushagak King Salmon Action Plan, Nushagak King Salmon Management Plan, and Proposals 11-13 on January 18 and again February 10. The NRKS Committee met in person twice to develop a solution considering the deferred proposals (11-13) and the Action Plan. On February 13, a meeting was held among committee members, ADF&G, and other interested stakeholders to discuss the concept of a separate “Stock of Concern Management Plan” and what elements might be in it, using modified draft conceptual language (Appendix D2) as a starting point. The committee also discussed changes to the existing management plan outlined in Proposal 11 and how the SOC Management Plan would mesh with it. The NAC Subcommittee met February 17 to discuss king salmon management including the ADF&G Action Plan, the draft SOC Management Plan and modified Proposal 11 contained in Appendix D3, and other topics. The subcommittee took one action to restrict mesh size in the commercial fishery to 4 ¾” until June 28. Other topics, including the WRSHA, were referenced for further discussion. On February 23, the NRKS Committee reconvened to refine language in both plans and strive for consensus on as many elements as possible. After the NRKS committee meetings were complete, the BBSRI Study Team used the consensus items to draft a revised version of Proposal 11 and the new SOC Management Plan. These versions were presented to the Nushagak AC at their March 1 meeting and the NAC voted in favor of both with three specific changes. The Study Team updated the plans to include NAC recommendations and submitted them to the board (RC13).

With specific exceptions, the SOC Management Plan and Revised Proposal 11 in RC13 had garnered consent from the NRKS Committee and the NAC in consultation with ADF&G. That consent was reflected early during the board meeting when staff referred to the plans therein as a good framework that would improve management, and in public testimony that recognized declines in Nushagak River king salmon, voiced impacts in the various fisheries, voiced support for acting now, and supported RC13, with specific exceptions, as the solution. Proposals 12 and 13 met with mixed support and opposition and less discussion. Consent on the language in RC13, with the stated exceptions, carried through board deliberations. The board amended the language to address the stated exceptions and include delisting criteria. In the end, the board approved the plans as amended, by a vote of 5-0. The board also adopted a finding for the record concerning the adoption of OEGs in the SOC Management Plan. The board took no action on Proposal 12 given the action on the SOC Management Plan and Proposal 11, and failed Proposal 13 0-5.