Regulators signal no California salmon season this year amid dismal return of adult fish

Photo: Stephen James caught the only salmon at the 2016 Albion Open kayak fishing tournament in Albion, CA. (JOHN BURGESS/The Press Democrat)

Every final option before West Coast fishery managers in their April 7 vote calls for canceling California’s sport and commercial salmon seasons, a heavy blow for port economies from Eureka to Morro Bay.

The rule-making body for West Coast ocean fisheries has endorsed closing the commercial and recreational salmon season this year, striking a heavy blow for the California commercial fleet and for sport anglers who support port economies from Eureka to Morro Bay.

But fishery regulators, tasked with maintaining sustainable stocks, had little choice given grim reports from state and federal scientists about the state of salmon abundance in the ocean and recent spawning returns.

The Pacific Fisheries Management Council usually closes its weeklong March meeting by offering three alternative season schedules for fishing zones in Washington, Oregon and California that are then subject to public hearings and a final selection of season dates in April.

This year, the council’s choices for California will all be the same when it’s time to take a perfunctory vote April 7: no season for sport fishermen, and none for the commercial fleet.

Only in 2008 and 2009 were salmon numbers so low that fishing was canceled, though recreational fishers were given a few days on the water in 2009.

But with just 169,767 adult Sacramento River fall run chinook estimated to be offshore this year — a substantial decrease from the 396,458 predicted last year and forecasts above 800,000 a decade ago — fishery managers are worried any diminution of the stock will put the population at risk.

Sacramento River fall run chinook, or king salmon, are the most important contributor to fish stocks on the Central and North Coast of California.

Moreover, bleak spawning conditions during three years of severe drought, along with state and federal water policies that many blame for robbing fish in favor of farmers brought only an estimated 61,850 Sacramento River fall run adults upstream to spawn in 2022, the third-lowest level on record. Nearly half, 29,138, were calculated to be hatchery fish.

That’s nowhere near the target level of […]

Full article: Regulators signal no California salmon season this year amid dismal return of adult fish