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SPIN UP YOUR OWN COHO LURES

from Alaska Sporting Journal - February 2023

from Alaska Sporting Journal - February 2023, page 61

Cumberland’s

Some of the most enticing lures that Last Frontier salmon will strike are spinners, and patient, creative anglers with an artistic side can make their own that will drive coho crazy. With all the di erent blade patterns, color combinations and squid skirts, the sky’s the limit! Brian Kelly has a tutorial for DIY warriors.

Features

24 WE AIN’T IN KANSAS ANYMORE!

A Kansas film crew duo traveled the rugged and beautiful area around Katmai National Park, Bristol Bay and the Alaska Peninsula as they shot a promotional video highlighting Royal Wolf Lodge and the region’s outstanding fishing. It was indeed an epic experience for first-time Last Frontier visitors Blake Kresge and Austin Walsh, who shared their stories of discovery with us.

53 Build A Lightweight Blind

Like Brian Kelly’s build-your-ownspinner class elsewhere this issue, Scott Haugen also channels his inner Tim the Toolman Taylor with a how-to lesson on creating a lightweight, mobile duck blind that won’t burn through your hunting budget. And Ti any Haugen, the second half of our From Field to Fire team, adds a delicious, fruitforward smoked salmon recipe for the ﬁsh in your freezer.

58WHAT

Happens When Wolves Eat

UP ALL THE DEER

Wolves inhabit many Southeast Alaska islands and in the Gustavus area they diminished deer numbers so much they were forced to ﬁnd alternative food sources. Oregon State University’s Sean Nealon reports on a joint OSU-Alaska Department of Fish and Game study that identiﬁed the unexpected sea critter wolves are frequently seeking out to feed on.

Also In This Issue

15 The Editor’s Note: Pebble Blocked By EPA In Final Determination!

19 The Alaska Beat

23 Outdoor calendar

39 Salmon carcasses help enrich Panhandle family’s veggie garden

(BRIAN KELLY)

Iremember in January of 2014, just a few months after I started my now almost decade-long stint as editor of ASJ, I stood in a parking lot on a sunny but bitterly frigid day at Seattle’s Fishermen’s Terminal. It was an educational experience I continue to learn about in 2023.

The event that took place that day, a Stop Pebble Mine rally, featured impassioned speeches from Alannah Hurley, executive director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Bristol Bay commercial ﬁsherman Brett Veerhusen, and others. Their objections to Pebble, the proposed gold and copper mine, has carried on throughout my almost 10 years on the job, and the ﬁght has appeared throughout the pages of this magazine, our website and social media pages.

And on the last day of January, just as we were sending this issue to press, the Environmental Protection Agency released its Final Determination with the intention to implement Clean Water Act protections on the Bristol Bay region for good.

“EPA issued a Final Determination under its Clean Water Act Section 404(c) authority to limit the use of certain waters in the Bristol Bay watershed as disposal sites for certain discharges of dredged or ﬁll material associated with deposit, a large ore body in southwest Alaska,” the EPA said.

“After extensive review of scientiﬁc and technical research spanning two decades, and robust stakeholder engagement, EPA has determined that certain discharges associated with developing the Pebble deposit will have unacceptable adverse e ects on certain salmon ﬁshery areas in the Bristol Bay watershed.”

The EPA further reinforced that discharges of “dredged or fill material to construct and operate the proposed mine site alone would result in the permanent loss of approximately 8.5 miles of anadromous fish streams; 91 miles of additional streams that support anadromous fish streams; 2,108 acres of wetlands and other waters in the (South Fork Koktuli River) and (North Fork Koktuli River) watersheds that support anadromous fish streams.”

As you would expect, the pushback from Pebble proponents means the debate won’t simply go away right away despite this latest development that, for now, kills the project. Pebble Partnership, the parent organization behind the mine, stated it would likely pursue legal action from what it calls “the EPA’s preemptive action against Pebble.” (In a statement, longtime Pebble Mine supporter Mike Dunleavy, Alaska’s Governor, said, stop any development project, mining or non-mining, in any area of Alaska with wetlands and ﬁsh-bearing streams,. My Administration will stand up for the rights of Alaskans, Alaska property owners, and Alaska’s future.”)

On the day the EPA’s Final Determination was released, I sent emails to ﬁlmmaker Mark Titus (The Breach, The Wild) and Trout Unlimited’s Marian Giannulis, praising them and others for their tenacity during this extended saga. Both o ered up emotional replies of gratitude for this moment. But I keep thinking about Hurley, whose Yup’ik people have relied on Bristol Bay’s salmon to sustain themselves and be their lifeblood for generations, and her resolve she showed me that day in Seattle so many years ago. Hurley was among those who spoke at a press conference on Jan. 31.

“Many of those who began the battle are no longer with us. New generations of our people have been born and raised with the cloud of Pebble hanging overhead,” she said, adding that so many people have worked to “defend the last great wild salmon ﬁshery left on the planet. Today’s announcement is historic progress toward that goal.”