I have been around a while and have seen more than my share of battles in our Alaskan fisheries. You don’t get a beard full of white hair and a head full of no hair by not being involved. Normally, when I see or read bilge water opinion pieces I chuckle at the attempt to mislead those who have to hear such garbage. I rely on the fact that most Alaskans have good judgment and are more than capable of knowing when they are being fed a line of baloney.

But when I read the latest attack on Senate Bill 113 and Sen. Ben Stevens, concocted by a guy named Taufen, I just couldn’t let it go. This guy, who is from some unknown entity he calls “GROUNDSWELL” from Seattle, has attacked the integrity of a lifelong Alaskan.

Stevens — who having fished our most dangerous fishery, the Bering Sea crab fishery — knows personally what it’s like to make a living as a commercial fisherman, and is now trying to use his experience and knowledge to solve some mighty difficult fishery management problems.

I have known Stevens his entire life. I watched him, as many of us did, learn the commercial fishing industry from the ground up. We watched him work the deck of crab and salmon boats — beginning, as all of us did, by doing the grunt work greenhorns must do—to working his way through the engine room and ultimately to the wheelhouse.

Stevens went on to become a leading skipper and has sailed virtually every mile of Alaska’s coast on fish boats, tug boats and even Hovercrafts! I bet he’s squeezed more Alaska sea water out of his socks than Taufen has ever seen.

Stevens was asked to sponsor SB 113 by those who manage our fisheries. The request came from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, representatives of the Alaska Board of Fisheries and representatives from the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission (CFEC).

Why? Because the ground fish fisheries in the Gulf of Alaska are managed by the feds and the state. The feds are charged with fish from three to 200 miles and the state from zero to three miles.

The federal managers are currently wrestling with solving difficult management problems that have resulted in small, fast derby-type fisheries that are difficult to operate in. As they wrestled with rationalizing the fishery the feds realized there are very few options for managing fisheries inside state waters. That’s why SB 113 is so important. It will allow state managers to create more options.

One of the big challenges with rationalizing any fishery is that fish travel — they swim back and forth between different jurisdictions at different times and under different conditions.

Stevens was asked to help give the Board of Fish and the CFEC the necessary tools to solve these management problems in state waters.

That’s what the bill does — period. The bill simply provides state managers with the tools necessary to get the job done.

SB 113 does not describe any type of management solution, nor does it require any particular outcome. If the truth be known, Stevens was asked by some to direct the board and CFEC to solve the problems in all kinds of different ways depending on where they stood and how they might benefit from the changes.

He said, “NO!” to all of them. He said it is up to the board and CFEC to make those decisions — that’s what they were established for — to make tough decisions on the best way to manage state fisheries to the best result for all involved. Many people were disappointed, including those who Taufen claims influenced the bill.

The facts are that the Gulf fisheries have significant management problems; those charged with solving those problems asked for the tools needed to fix things. They asked the legislator — a former fisherman — who has one of the best working understandings of our fisheries of anybody in the legislature. Stevens agreed to give them the tools — and nothing more.

Let’s not let ourselves be distracted by allegations from one side or another. Instead, let us focus on the things we can agree on — that the fisheries need help and that our fishermen need protection — and let’s see if we can’t get the fish managers the tools they need to make the changes necessary to accomplish both.

Longtime Kodiak resident Al Burch is a pioneer fisherman in pollock and cod. He has been fishing in Alaska waters for 45 years.