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The Pacific Salmon Commission decided this week in Portland, Ore., to allow directed chinook fishing to recommence on the Stikine and Taku river stocks this spring.

"It could be a fairly significant little boost for us," said Eric Norman, general manager of Taku Smokeries/Fisheries.

"It will make gillnetting overall more lucrative," said Kathy Hansen, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Fishermen's Alliance, adding that it may extend Southeast Alaska's gillnet season by about seven weeks.

"We're just tickled pink. It's been 25 to 28 years since we fished up there. We're real pleased to have it back again," said Bud Ivey, a Juneau resident and Taku gillnetter.

The fisheries on the two rivers were closed in the mid-1970s as part of a U.S.-Canada agreement to allow stocks to rebuild after they had been overfished.

Efforts to re-establish the fisheries were impeded for about a decade by strained relations between Alaskan and Canadian fishermen.

In 1997, for example, Canadian fishermen protested that Alaskans were fishing more than their fair share of salmon in the region's transboundary rivers and blockaded the Malaspina ferry in Prince Rupert.

Transboundary refers to rivers that cross national borders.

After negotiating, the nations signed the 1999 Pacific Salmon Treaty, in which they agreed not to develop fisheries on transboundary king salmon stocks without mutual consent or conservation-based management plans.

No one knew exactly what to do to move things forward, Hansen said.

The new agreement between Canada and the United States came after several years of healthy king salmon runs. It will allow Alaska king salmon fisheries to commence sometime in May.

Allocations will not be set for Alaska commercial gear groups or sportfishermen in either fishing zone until March, state regulators said.

It is likely that gillnetters and trollers - both of whom fished the Taku Inlet in the past - will be interested in fishing there again.

Regulations are on the books for drift gillnet and sport fisheries in Taku Inlet.

Ivey, the Juneau fisherman, speculated that many in Juneau's 40-boat gillnet fleet, and possibly 100 other gillnetters from elsewhere in Southeast, could descend on the Taku this spring.

But, the 38-year-veteran fisherman said, sockeye salmon is "the money fish" for Juneau gillnetters in the inlet and he doesn't expect that to change.

The weighty allocation decisions between gear groups and sportfishermen will be taken up by the state Board of Fisheries in March, said David Bedford, deputy commissioner for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

The new agreement also provides for subsistence fisheries for king and coho salmon on the Stikine River. Those allocations will be made by federal regulators.

Before the Board of Fisheries meets, the Juneau-Douglas Fish and Game Advisory Committee will take comment on the Taku River king salmon fisheries at its Feb. 28 meeting, said Hansen, who chairs the advisory committee.

"It's a one-shot opportunity to provide (local) feedback," Hansen said.

Norman, of Taku Smokeries/Fisheries, is optimistic for a great spring.

He said the Taku River king salmon season runs almost simultaneously with the well-known Copper River king salmon season, which may have a beneficial side-effect on local prices.

"The prices will be pretty high and the fishermen will have a chance to make money," Norman said.