fishing season – Enviro Updates

Commercial salmon fishing to open in California for the first time since 2022

April 12, 2026

Sophie Austin, ASSOCIATED PRESS

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Federal fishery managers voted Sunday to open waters off the coast of California to commercial salmon fishing for the first time since 2022, with the population rebounding after wet winters ended a long drought.

The decision by the Pacific Fishery Management Council to allow limited commercial and recreational salmon fishing off the coast is a win for the state’s salmon fishing industry, which has grappled with years of season closures due to dwindling fish stocks. The council, which manages fisheries off the West Coast, barred commercial salmon fishing off California for the past three years. It voted last year to allow some recreational fishing for the first time since 2022.

The council is an advisory group to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, which makes the final decision but historically has followed the council’s rulings. The secretary’s decision will be posted in the Federal Register within days.

Agriculture/Food System, WildlifeChinook salmon, coho salmon, fisheries, fishing season, salmon

‘We’re getting hit left and right’: Dwindling salmon runs to restrict 2021 commercial season

March 12, 2021

Isabella Vanderheiden, THE TIMES STANDARD

Dwindling Chinook salmon runs have forced the Pacific Fishery Management Council to shorten the commercial salmon fishing season. The Sacramento Valley fall-run Chinook salmon runs are projected to be half as abundant as the 2020 season while the Klamath River fall Chinook abundance forecast is slightly higher than the 2020 but is still significantly lower than the long-term average.

During a press briefing on Friday morning, John McManus President of the Golden State Salmon Association said the added restrictions will deal a blow to commercial fishermen.

“You may wonder why we’re in this predicament this year, there are some near term and some longer-term reasons why but at the end of the day, we’re seeing a decline in our salmon runs here in the state of California,” McManus said. “In large measure, because of what’s happening in their freshwater habitat where they’re just not getting enough to give us healthy populations year in and year out.”

A normal salmon fishing season brings in about $1.4 billion statewide and employs approximately 23,000 people, McManus said.

“The salmon out of the Central Valley are caught in the ocean, not only off California but all the way up along the Oregon coast. This is a major economic shot in the arm for coastal communities and for inland communities as well,” he said.

According to the CDFW website, commercial salmon fishing typically opens on May 1 but this year the season is “closed in 2021” from the Oregon border down to Humboldt Bay’s south jetty.

Agriculture/Food System, WildlifeChinook salmon, dams, fisheries, fishing season

Salmonid counts below replacement level in Eel River, CDFW announces

June 12, 2020

Lana Cohen, THE MENDOCINO VOICE

Many elements have contributed to the decline of these fish species, including warmer and lower water, sediment flowing into the river, invasive species, and dams as factors that have had the most devastating impact.

In order for the Chinook and steelhead, whose populations are plummeting up and down the West Coast, to rebound in the Eel River, there should be at least 26,400 fish returning from the ocean to the Eel to spawn annually, according to the State of Salmon, a salmon information sharing venue run by The Nature Conservancy.

Although the Eels fish population was larger this year than last, Fish and Wildlife’s June 1 report shows that the population fell far below the margin for species recovery. Only 8,263 made the journey, they wrote.

Due to the dwindling population of fish, Fish and Wildlife has set a two fish limit per day for recreational salmon fishing. More details can be found at the Fish and Wildlife’s Ocean Salmon Sport Regulations page.

Water, Wildlifechinook, coho, endangered species, fisheries, fishing season, salmon

Crab harvest is not only light, but late

January 1, 2020

Tyler Silvy, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The rush to renew a North Coast New Year’s tradition — feasting on freshly caught Dungeness crab — may help ease the pinch of a late start to the season for fishermen and retailers, but mediocre early returns have so far added a little lemon juice to the cut endured this year by the fleet.

“I won’t say it’s poor,” said Bodega Bay fisherman Dick Ogg, before offering a laugh. “I’ll say it’s less than good. It’s not exactly what we had expected. Our original anticipation was that there were a fair quantity of crabs in the area. Unfortunately, that is not the case.”

The prediction of a mountain of Dungeness crab lying in wait at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean prompted a number of fishing boats from outside the area to descend this month on Bodega Bay.

They had time, as the season was delayed a month until Dec. 15 to allow endangered humpback whales time to clear the area and head south to their winter home off the coast of Mexico.

Ogg, the vice president of Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Marketing Association, said the added pressure didn’t help matters, but it ultimately comes down to this: There just aren’t as many crabs as predicted. And at this point, Ogg said, “the majority have been caught.”

Agriculture/Food System, WildlifeDungeness crab, fisheries, fishing season, overfishing, whales

Best salmon return since 2014 leads to longer season for North Coast fishery

April 18, 2019

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

North Coast fishing crews idled by an early end to the Dungeness crab season will have a longer 2019 salmon season than in recent years after fishery managers finalized dates Tuesday, a reflection of this year’s healthier projected adult spawning run.

In fact, this generation of returning adult king salmon is thought to be the most abundant since 2014, allowing for a season opener beginning May 16 and stretching to at least late September in coastal waters between Point Arena on the southern Mendocino Coast and Pigeon Point on the coast of San Mateo County.

That 122-day span is nearly twice the 73 days provided to commercial boats in 2018 — a reflection, experts say, of abundant rainfall when this year’s adult spawners were juveniles two years ago, making their way down freshwater streams to the Pacific Ocean.

The brighter forecast comes amid generally declining conditions across ocean fisheries and continued restrictions needed to rebuild West Coast salmon stocks, twin blows that have landed hard on California’s struggling commercial fishing fleet.

Agriculture/Food System, Wildlifeendangered species, fisheries, fishing season, overfishing, salmon

Shorter season imposed on California’s Dungeness crab fleet to safeguard whales

March 27, 2019

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

California’s commercial crabbing fleet will be fishing significantly shorter seasons going forward and with greater safeguards in place to avoid ensnaring endangered marine life in potentially deadly gear under a legal settlement announced Tuesday.

The deal, reached between state regulators, environmentalists and representatives of the crab fleet, is meant especially to protect whales, some of them endangered, that feed in abundance during the spring off the Central and North Coast.

The framework unveiled Tuesday will cut the current season and future seasons by as much as 2½ months and mandate a near-constant watch on the entanglement risks posed to sealife. If those risks are too high, regulators could trigger mid-season closures of some areas.

“It’s been my view almost always we can do right by our natural resources and do right by Californians, and do it better together than in a courtroom,” state Fish and Wildlife Director Chuck Bonham said during a media call on the settlement.

Other parties to the deal included the Center for Biological Diversity, which sued the state in 2017 over a sharp rise in the number of whale entanglements, and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

To a large extent, the complex settlement reinforces and formalizes efforts already being developed by wildlife regulators and partners to ensure that imperiled wildlife and the crab fishery can thrive.

State Sen. Mike McGuire, whose North Coast district accounts for most of the state’s crab catch, one of California’s most lucrative fisheries, said the cooperation was a sign of the “extremely proactive” posture the state has adopted “to ensure California’s majestic whale population and our crabbing fleet can co-exist.”

Agriculture/Food System, Habitats, Sonoma Coast, WildlifeDungeness crab, fisheries, fishing season, whales

Forecast shows California salmon fishermen in for another year of sharp limits

March 1, 2018

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A third straight year of low king salmon runs is expected to deliver another blow to one of the North Coast’s most iconic and lucrative fisheries, wildlife managers indicated Thursday, as both regulators and fishermen faced the prospect of a federally mandated plan to reverse the trend and rebuild key stocks.

The grim news comes amid a dramatic, yearslong decline in the state’s commercial salmon landings, which are down 97 percent last year from their most recent peak, in 2013, when they hit 12.7 million pounds.

The full picture for commercial and sport seasons won’t be clear for several more weeks, but spawning projections show Sacramento River salmon — historically the largest source for the state’s ocean and freshwater harvests — have fallen so low that they’re now considered by regulators to be “overfished.”

Wildlife officials acknowledged that term minimizes the many factors that have led to this point, including shifting conditions in the ocean and years of low river flows during the drought, all of which have pummeled stocks.

Agriculture/Food System, Wildlifechinook, Delta, endangered species, fisheries, fishing season, Sacramento River, salmon