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FAIRBANKS — Allowing Chitina dip-netters to keep four Copper River king salmon instead of just one.

Increasing the bag limit at Chitina by 10 salmon per household member for households with more than two people.

Extending the king salmon fishing season on the Klutina River 10 days to Aug. 10.

Counting any salmon you land on the Gulkana and Klutina rivers against your daily bag limit, even if you release it.

Banning motorized boats two days of the week during the king salmon fishing season on the Gulkana River.

Those are just some of the changes that could be in store for fishermen and dip-netters if they are adopted by the Alaska Board of Fisheries at its December meeting in Cordova.

But local residents can let board members know what they think of those and other proposals when the seven-person board responsible for regulating Alaska’s commercial, subsistence, personal-use and sport fisheries meets for a work session in Fairbanks next week that will include a night of public testimony.

The comment session, scheduled for 7 p.m. next Thursday at the Alpine Lodge near Fairbanks International Airport, is a result of a request by the Fairbanks Fish and Game Advisory Committee, one of 80 such groups around the state that makes recommendations to the fish board on local fish and game issues.

Most people can’t afford the time or expense of traveling to Cordova for the regular meeting in December and the committee wanted a chance for Fairbanks fishermen and dip-netters to have their say, Mike Tinker, one of 15 committee members, said.

“The board is really extending us a chance,” Tinker said. “Normally they don’t do this.”

But with a three-day work session scheduled in Fairbanks, the board felt it was “logical to set aside an evening to hear from people of Fairbanks,” board executive director Jim Marcotte said.

Whether you dip net salmon from the Copper River at Chitina, go shrimping in Prince William Sound, or like to fish for king salmon on the Gulkana and Klutina rivers, there are proposals pertaining to those and other personal-use, sport, subsistence and commercial fisheries in Prince William Sound and the Copper River Basin.

“Anybody doing anything in Prince William Sound or the Copper River, this is the meeting for them,” Tinker said. “You won’t have a chance to get on these issues for a couple years after this.”

The Board of Fisheries meets every two years to consider proposals to change fishing regulations for specific regions so any changes made in Cordova during December will remain in place until 2010.

Someone testifying in Fairbanks next week will be given the same consideration as someone testifying at the meeting in Cordova in December, which is one of the reasons the fish board is asking anyone who plans to testify in Cordova to refrain from testifying on Wednesday, Marcotte said.

Anglers and dip-netters in Fairbanks would be wise to drop by the Department of Fish and Game on College Road and pick up a proposal book, or go online at the ADF&G Web site to look at the proposals.

There are several proposals regarding the personal-use dip net fishery on the Copper River at Chitina, a favorite freezer filler for Fairbanks residents. Some proposals would liberalize the fishery and others would establish tighter restrictions.

The Fairbanks Fish and Game Advisory Committee is asking the board to up the limit for king salmon from one to four. The three extra kings would be recorded on the back of a dip-netter’s sport fishing license and would count against that person’s seasonal sport fishing limit for the Gulkana and Klutina rivers.

In other words, if you caught and kept four kings at Chitina, you wouldn’t be able to keep any kings if you went sport fishing on the Gulkana and Klutina.

“An Alaska resident ought to be able to get more than one king salmon for their family to eat in a personal-use fishery,” Virgil Umphenour, chairman of the Fairbanks Fish and Game Advisory Committee, said.

The advisory committee also submitted a proposal to increase the seasonal 30-fish bag limit for a household of more than two by allowing dip-netters to take 10 sockeye salmon for each additional family member.

“That’s the way it is on the Kenai (Peninsula),” committee chairman Virgil Umphenour said, referring to personal-use dip net fisheries on the Kenai and Kasilof Rivers.

To compensate for the added harvest, the committee proposed doing away with supplemental periods that allow dip-netters to catch an extra 10 fish per permit on weeks when the sonar counts at Miles Lake exceed pre-season projections by 50,000 or more fish.

“This supplemental period thing isn’t working out unless you make another trip down there,” Umphenour said. “Who wants to make an extra trip to Chitina for 10 fish?”

The proposal being pushed the hardest by the advisory committee is one that would re-classify the Chitina dip net fishery from a personal-use to subsistence fishery, which it was originally designated when it was created. It has flipped back and forth between subsistence and personal-use ever since.

Umphenour was on the board in 1999 when it was switched back to a subsistence fishery, only to have the board reverse that decision four years later and return it to personal-use. By state law, the fishery should be classified as subsistence, Umphenour said.

While a subsistence designation wouldn’t necessarily mean more fish for dip-netters, it would put them higher on the pecking order than commercial fishermen.

“It gives dip-netters a higher priority than commercial fishermen in times of shortages,” Umphenour explained.

There are also proposals that would restrict the subsistence and personal-use fisheries at Chitina , as well as sport fishermen on the Gulkana and Klutina rivers.

“There are some very restrictive sport fishing proposals that folks may want to comment on,” Tom Taube, regional management coordinator for the Division of Sport Fish in Fairbanks, said.

Citing high mortality from catch and release practices and more sport fishing pressure on Upper Copper River streams, the Native village of Eyak is asking the board to count any salmon landed against an angler’s bag limit, even if he or she releases the fish.

Likewise, the village submitted a proposal to ban power boats in the Gulkana River two days a week to prevent over harvest as a result of back trolling, a popular and effective fishing technique many anglers employ for king salon. The village also said bank and habitat degradation is occurring as a result of motorized boats in some streams and the proposal is a “proactive preventative measure based off experience on highly trafficked rivers in other parts of the state.”

Whether you agree or not — and I’m sure most anglers in Fairbanks don’t — the most important thing for local anglers and dip-netters to do is show up at the meeting next Thursday and let their feelings be known because it will be too late to gripe about it next summer after changes have been made.