5 AAC 31.124. Lawful shrimp pot gear for Registration Area A

(a) Shrimp may be taken with pots in Registration Area A only as specified in this section.

(b) A shrimp pot may not have

(1) more than one bottom;

(2) a vertical height of more than 24 inches;

(3) more than four tunnel eye openings which individually do not exceed 15 inches in perimeter; or

(4) a bottom perimeter exceeding a perimeter specified in (e) of this section.

(1) at a right angle to the plane of the bottom of the pot; or

(2) slanted inward toward the center of the pot in a straight line from the bottom of the pot to the top of the pot.

(d) A shrimp pot must be entirely covered with net webbing or rigid mesh. At least two adjacent sides or 50 percent of the vertical or near-vertical sides must be covered with net webbing or rigid mesh that allows the passage of a seven-eighths inch diameter by 12 inch long wooden dowel, which upon insertion into the web, must drop completely through by its own weight, without force. In the waters of Lituya Bay, enclosed by a line from the easternmost tip of Harbor Point to the southernmost tip of LaChaussee Spit there is no minimum mesh size.

(e) Shrimp pots may be operated only as follows:

(1) repealed 7/18/2003;

(2) the number of shrimp pots that may be operated from a registered shrimp fishing vessel is 140 small pots or 100 large pots; if any pot operated from a vessel is larger than a small pot, the total number of pots that may be operated from that vessel is 100 pots; for the purpose of this section,

(A) a "small pot" has a bottom perimeter of no more than 124 inches;

(B) a "large pot" has a bottom perimeter of no more than 124 inches, but not more than 153 inches;

(3) all pots on board a vessel or operated from a vessel must be of the same type and of the same size as defined in (2)(A) or (B) of this subsection;

(4) a vessel operator may have only shrimp pot gear owned by that person on board the vessel at any time;

(5) shrimp pot gear may be deployed or retrieved only from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. each day; the commissioner may close, by emergency order, the fishing season in a district or a portion of a district and immediately reopen the season during which the time period allowed to deploy and retrieve shrimp pot gear may be increased or decreased to achieve the guideline harvest range;

(6) all shrimp pots left in saltwater unattended longer than a two-week period must have all bait containers removed and all doors secured fully open.

(f) A registered shrimp vessel may not have, at any time in the aggregate, more than the legal limit of pot gear on board the vessel, in the water in fishing condition, and in the water in non-fishing condition.

History: Eff. 9/28/97, Register 143; am 5/8/98, Register 146; am 7/18/2003, Register 167

Authority: AS 16.05.251

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