There are probably a lot of thankless jobs in the world. Sitting here thinking, and not very hard at that, I can come up with at least a dozen off the top of my head. Near the top of the list lie the men and women who make up the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Sport Fish Division.

Established in 1951 as part of Alaska’s territorial government, the division was designed to oversee the state’s developing sport fisheries. It must have been a whirlwind ride, as in just a little over fifty years, Alaska’s fisheries have experienced a tremendous boom in use. Managers who must have struggled to cope with the sheer number and size of the state’s fisheries were also assigned the inevitability of increasing public interest. By the time of the division’s formation, the first few wilderness sport fishing lodges were just getting underway. By the 1980s, Alaska’s remote fisheries were seeing a kind of angling pressure that may have been unimaginable in 1951. Today, the Division of Sport Fish is responsible for oversight and management of sport and personal-use fisheries that are worth more than 500 million dollars annually, that operate in every nook and cranny of the state, and that are only a little less politically charged than the abortion debate.

Even with all that—their relatively short tenure, the incredible pressure exerted on the process from all sides, and the rapidly-evolving nature of the state’s sport fishery—Alaska’s fisheries managers, like the waters they oversee, have been recognized as among the very best in the world. While fishery horror stories continue to sweep the globe (entire runs depleted, native stocks decimated, habitat destroyed), Alaska remains able to trumpet its vigorous and healthy stocks of wild fish.

For a case in point just take a look at the Kenai River. Have you seen the pressure that stream gets during the king and sockeye returns? Have you seen the stack of boats chasing the river’s rainbows below Skilak Lake? The fact that its Chinook and rainbow trout populations remain world-class must be attributed to something other than luck. Or how about the Northern Cook Inlet Management Area, which is largely made up of the Susitna River drainage? The rainbow trout populations native to this watershed, another high-use area, are presently deemed to be healthier than they’ve been for nearly three decades. Some of these stocks, like those native to the Talachulitna drainage, were feared to have been permanently damaged at one point in time, while they’re now at or above historical levels. And beyond trout, king salmon anglers might take notice of the recent returns of Chinook to the Deshka River, one of southcentral Alaska’s most popular king destinations.

Another significant success story for ADF&G must be the management of the Naknek River’s famous rainbows. In the late 1980s, the average size of catchable rainbow trout, along with the total abundance of spawning fish, had significantly declined from historical levels. The department recommended more conservative bag and size limit regulations to protect larger, older fish, and the Alaska Board of Fisheries subsequently adopted the new, more conservative regulations in 1990. Today, the latest studies indicate that the Naknek River rainbow trout population has responded very favorably to those actions, with a large increase in the numbers of larger, spawning trout, and the river has retained its reputation as a trophy trout destination.

One cannot look at these stories and the many just like them without concluding that overall, the efforts of Alaska’s sport fish managers have been anything but average. When fisheries have gone bad in this country and others, managers inexorably bear the brunt of the blame. Whether that criticism is well placed or not hardly matters to me. What matters is that managers’ efforts are recognized when their fisheries are healthy and expanding, as they are in Alaska.

Caught between interested parties that can often make the Hatfields and the McCoys look reasonable, the biologists of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game continue to do their jobs. Not all of their decisions are popular, of course, though perhaps that has more to do with how we, the angling public, view our “rights” than it does with the decisions themselves. Sure, fisheries management remains an inexact science, especially when concerned with anadromous species, and debate is an essential component to properly caring for this most wonderful of resources.

But when the battles have all been fought and the regulation books printed for another year and we find ourselves on some spruce lined riverbank, hauling ashore a brawny Chinook salmon or gently handling a silver-sided, wild steelhead, we should remember what it means to us that these fish still find a way to return to our state’s waters. We should remember how important it is that they continue to return, so our children and their children and every generation after that are not robbed of a right that can only be collective. And we should remember that there are people in this state whose job is to accomplish just that. Maybe then we can see past our differences long enough to offer them the thanks they surely deserve.

—Troy Letherman
Editor