I’ve spent most of my life on the beaches of Cook Inlet. At Alaska Blue Harvest Seafoods, fishing isn’t just what our family does — it’s who we are.

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My husband Brian started as a deckhand in the late 1970s, and in 1987 we bought our own setnet site. Back then, we were just young fishermen trying to build a life doing something we loved. We never imagined all the years, tides, struggles, and memories that would follow.

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For nearly 40 years, our summers have revolved around salmon season. Every May we head back to the beach to dig out anchors, set buoys, repair gear, and get ready for another season. By July, the tide book completely takes over our lives. We sleep by it, eat by it, and work by it. 

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People see pictures of Alaska fishing and think it looks romantic — and sometimes it is. But most of the time it’s hard work, exhaustion, cold rain, broken equipment, and trying to make things work when everything seems to go wrong at once.

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Still, there’s nothing like standing on the beach before an opener with a cup of coffee in your hand watching the inlet wake up. There’s nothing like hearing the skiffs fire up at 7:00 a.m. and seeing your family working together on the same piece of beach generation after generation.

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That’s why we keep doing it.

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We’ve always taken pride in harvesting and processing our own salmon. The fish we catch are bled and iced immediately, then hand-cleaned, filleted, vacuum packed, and shipped directly to customers by us. From the water to the package, our family handles every step.

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The last several years haven’t been easy for Eastside setnet families though. Restrictions tied to declining Kenai River Chinook salmon runs have left many fishing families wondering whether there would even be a future for our fishery. When the Alaska Board of Fisheries adopted the king salmon Stock of Concern plan in 2024, it felt like the door had slammed shut on traditional setnet fishing for years to come.

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I remember leaving that meeting thinking we had two choices: either sit around and watch our fishery disappear, or try to build something new.

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So that’s exactly what we did.

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The Set Beach Seine project started as an idea we had carried around for years. Back in 2015, during all the fights over attempts to eliminate setnetters entirely, we had already started thinking about selective fishing methods that could catch sockeye while releasing king salmon alive. At the time, the project never fully came together, but the idea never left us either.

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In 2024, we finally decided to take the leap.

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We received Commissioner’s Permit UCI 2024-01 and began building what would become our set beach seine operation. There was no grant money or state funding waiting for us. If we wanted it to happen, we had to build it ourselves and pay for it ourselves. So we did.

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We worked with welders, fishermen, hydraulic shops, and friends willing to help us figure out this crazy idea of fishing a 600-foot seine in Cook Inlet tides. Looking back now, I still laugh thinking about how wild some of it seemed.

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The trailer we built became known as “Scoopy.” Honestly, it looked like some kind of giant steel monster sitting on the beach. Then we dragged out the old seine net that had been sitting untouched for nearly ten years covered in moss and squirrel nests. We called her “Bertha,” because she was huge, heavy, and stubborn.

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There were so many moments during that project where we questioned ourselves. Would the lines hold? Would the trailer work? Would the tides destroy everything? Were we completely crazy?

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Maybe a little.

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But on June 30, 2024, we made our first successful set with Bertha. I can still remember standing there nervously watching that net hit the water. And when we successfully brought it back in with live fish swimming in the seine exactly like we hoped, it felt like maybe — just maybe — there was still hope for fishing families like ours.

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By 2025, the Set Beach Seine project had made its way in front of the Alaska Board of Fisheries again during the Statewide Finfish meeting through ACR 6 and Proposal 313. What many people do not realize is how close Eastside setnetters came to losing our traditional set gillnets entirely as a legal gear type under the Stock of Concern plan.

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That put fishermen like us in an impossible position.

Proposal 313 was our own proposal. We believed in the concept, the data, and the future potential of set beach seines. But as the meeting unfolded, it became clear there was a real risk that if the proposal moved forward the wrong way, traditional set gillnets could be permanently stripped out of the fishery altogether.

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So we made the painful decision to stand down our own proposal to protect the fleet.

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As fishermen, we essentially had to kill Proposal 313 ourselves in order to keep set gillnets from being removed as a legal gear type under the Stock of Concern plan. That was one of the hardest moments we’ve experienced in fisheries politics because we weren’t fighting against the idea of innovation — we were fighting to make sure our families still had something left to come back to.

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Then came the 2026 Statewide Finfish meeting.

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Once again, Eastside setnet families found themselves directly in the line of fire. Traditional set gillnets — the gear that built our fishery and supported generations of families — were at the center of the debate. In the end, the board removed set gillnets from the Eastside Setnet fishery under the Stock of Concern framework and added set beach seines as an alternative gear type.

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On paper, it sounded like an opportunity. But the reality was far more complicated.

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Under the adopted framework, set beach seines could realistically only be used when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game projected a Kenai king salmon run of 14,250 fish or greater. The same thresholds that were to be met with our gillnets. For many fishing families, that threshold felt nearly impossible to reach under current king salmon returns. So while set beach seines had finally become a legal gear type, many fishermen are left wondering when — or if — they will ever truly be allowed to fish them.

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At the same meeting, the department encouraged the Commissioner of Alaska Department of Fish and Game to continue testing the set beach seine concept, allowing up to 10 experimental operations along the beaches of Cook Inlet. That was important to us because it acknowledged something we had been saying from the beginning: this gear still needs time, testing, refinement, and real-world fishing experience to understand its full potential.

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For our family, the Set Beach Seine project was never about replacing fishermen or erasing the traditions of the Eastside setnet fleet. It was about survival. It was about trying to find a path forward for all fishermen where conservation and fishing families could still exist together while we work through the reality of the Kenai River Chinook salmon Stock of Concern status.

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But the project has not come without struggles or resistance within our own fleet.

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The truth is, many fishermen do not want change. Many simply want the opportunity to fish their traditional set gillnets again, just as their families have done for generations. And honestly, we understand that. Gillnets are what built this fishery, built our communities, and built our lives.

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At the same time, the reality facing the fleet today is difficult.

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Some fishermen are trying to find a way to keep fishing under the current restrictions, while others believe any shift away from traditional gear threatens the future of the fishery itself. That tension has created deep divisions on the beaches and within the fleet.

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The reality is also that set beach seines will not work for everyone.

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Some fishing locations simply do not have the beach conditions or infrastructure needed to operate a seine safely or effectively. Many sites do not have the stakes, pulley systems, anchor layouts, or physical beach structure necessary to deploy and retrieve a 420-foot seine in Cook Inlet tides. For some fishermen, converting their sites may not even be possible.

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But the gear can work for many fishermen, and that is where the current battle exists.

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Right now, our fishery is caught between tradition, survival, conservation, economics, and uncertainty about the future. Fishermen are frustrated. Families are exhausted. Years of closures, restrictions, disaster declarations, and political fights have taken a toll on everyone involved.

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Some see set beach seines as a lifeline. Others see them as a threat to the traditional fishery they are desperately trying to protect.

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The hard part is that both sides are fighting because they care deeply about the future of the Eastside setnet fishery.

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Our hope is that fishermen can eventually find common ground while we navigate through the challenges of the Stock of Concern plan together. Because at the end of the day, whether someone supports seines, supports gillnets, or supports both, we are all fighting for the same thing — the survival of fishing families and the future of our historic fishery in Cook Inlet.

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People outside the fishery sometimes think Board of Fish meetings are just politics on paper, but for us they are deeply personal. Every proposal affects real families, real homes, real businesses, and generations of hard-earned knowledge passed down on these beaches.

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Even through all of it, we still believe fishermen can be part of the solution.

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We still believe innovation matters.

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And we still believe Eastside setnet families deserve the opportunity to adapt instead of disappear.

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Why do we continue to fight for this fishery?

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Because fishing raised our family. Because some of the best moments of my life happened on our beach. Because there’s something deeply meaningful about working with your hands, watching the tides, and harvesting wild salmon from Alaska waters along side your children, grandchildren and parents.

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It’s hard work. It’s stressful. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking.

But after all these years, I still can’t imagine doing anything else.

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We’ll take our fight to restore our traditional set gillnets to the 2027 Alaska Board of Fisheries Upper Cook Inlet meeting in March 2027.  Maybe this summer, someone will find  the answer for harvesting sockeye without king mortality on all beach locations.  I hope they do.

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By then, fishermen involved in the Set Beach Seine project will have another full season of testing and real-world experience from the summer of 2026 to share with the board. We believe that innovation, practical fishing knowledge, and continued testing can help sustain this fishery while the Kenai River Chinook salmon stock works its way toward recovery and eventually exits the Stock of Concern plan.

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The reality is simple: Eastside setnet families have carried the burden of conservation for years. A fact that cannot be lost in the message.

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By the time the 2027 meeting arrives, Alaska will have a new Governor, likely a new Commissioner for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and a different board makeup. We hope those decision makers will take a fresh look at the families, history, and realities of this fishery.

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Our fleet has suffered enough.

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Generations of fishermen built their lives around these beaches, tides, and salmon runs. Many families have spent years hanging on financially and emotionally while trying to adapt to closures, restrictions, uncertainty, while constantly fighting political battles over the future of our fishery.

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Enough is enough.

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The truth is, the fights on the beaches over change, resistance to change, alternative gear, and survival have taken a toll on everyone involved. Fishermen are tired. Families are tired. Communities are tired.

 

Somewhere along the way, people likely forgot what we were actually fighting for in the first place — the survival of fishing families and a future where conservation and opportunity can still exist together.

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We are not asking to ignore conservation. We are asking for balance, fairness, and the chance to continue participating in the historic fishery our families helped build.

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What Eastside setnetters need now is not another political battle.

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We need a lifeline.