Salmon Fishing Season Returns to Central Coast for First Time in 4 Years

State leaders have announced that sport fishing for salmon will reopen on the Central Coast starting April 11, with commercial fishing set to begin the following month, marking a significant moment for commercial fishermen who have been unable to fish for salmon since 2022.

"It's the news that everybody's been waiting for," said Blake Anderson, Santa Cruz Harbormaster, expressing the anticipation surrounding the reopening of salmon season.

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed that recreational fishing will commence on April 11, while commercial fishing is scheduled to kick off in May.

The Santa Cruz Harbor is preparing for an influx of boaters, which is expected to benefit local businesses.

"We expect a lot of visitation here, a lot of boating," Anderson said. "It's good for the harbor, good for the businesses around here. You know, recreational salmon is really important and it's part of our culture here in Santa Cruz."

An abbreviated recreational salmon season last year lasted about two weeks, but the reopening is particularly significant for commercial fishermen who have been unable to fish for salmon since 2022.

Anderson noted the challenges faced by larger boats due to quota restrictions but highlighted the opportunity for smaller boats to harvest salmon and earn money.

State wildlife leaders have determined that salmon stocks have recovered sufficiently to allow sport and commercial salmon fishing from south of Pigeon Point in San Mateo County to the U.S./Mexico border.

Hans Haveman, owner of H&H Fish Market, expressed excitement about the reopening, emphasizing the popularity of salmon and its improved health this year.

Haveman said. "You know. it's definitely the fish. Everybody wants a 3 to 1 salmon over anything else. And it's like a little healthier this year. We're really excited."

Predetermined fish quotas will dictate the duration of the fishing seasons, which could last weeks or months. Local fish markets are eager for the return of fresh salmon, although Hans cautioned that there might be some sticker shock due to limited supply.

"This year is going to be abbreviated, but we'll have a few fish that'll come in and it might be some sticker shock because it won't be a lot of them," Haveman said. "But we'll try to keep prices down and then take care of our local fishermen as best we can. And some of our local eaters, too."

The exact date for the start of the commercial season will be determined in mid-April.

I take it that you never saw the extreme damage that the policy did to the conservation minded farmers in Kalmath, where as a result of the artificial draught it created drove land prices from $4000 acre to $29 acre. The farmers were mostly WWII vets who practiced water, land, animal, and fish conservation. The farmers were instrumental in setting aside 25,000 acres as a wild life refuge. The “endangered” sucker fish was the driver - a fresh water fish that could survive drought by burying itself in the mud.

The local deer populations did not fare so well, many dying of thirst - it was common to see the desiccated bodies or deer in the fields.

It was not about fish or any endangered species, it was about driving the land prices down so Nature Conservancy and American Rivers could swoop in and make a killing. They bought the farmers out, then sold a potion of the farm to the Government for their total purchase price, the rest of the land was then sold to their members who continued to farm the land.

The Klamath salmon were delisted in Sept 2001 - hatchery-spawned salmon are biologically indistinguishable from
naturally spawned, so-called “wild” salmon.

It was not about salmon until years later, when the local tribes decided to get in on the action, pushing for the dams removals, closing hatcheries, and making farming near impossible. Now people cheer the destruction of a way of life, so they can feel good about salmon that were never endangered in the first place.

I live in Washington State, where 100 years of over-fishing has decimated the salmon fishery. It won’t be easy to get it back.
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There was never any overfishing - a term created by the local media in the 70s to justify getting rid of commercial salmon fishing by non-Indians [ white, black, yellow ], except the local Indian Treaty Tribes - over which the State had no jurisdiction.

Salmon quotas are set by the State for both commercial and sport. The State sets the times and areas open for each species run. When the quotas are reached the fisheries are closed. The fisheries, when open, are heavily paroled.

With the introduction of the fish hatchery system in the 50s, populations began to expand everywhere. This expansion continued until Dept of Fisheries Deputy Director Frank Haw managed to get Director Shanks to implement a regulatory change in hatchery operational policy in the late 70s. Prior to that, individual hatcheries were managed to time releases so the maximum numbers would survive predation on their outward migrations.

Haw directed the hatchery managers to release as many smolts as soon as possible, knowing this would lower returning fish, impacting the commercial fishery, which as an avid sports angler, he & Shanks hated with passion.

Under Haw’s direction, Lake Washington Sockeye eyed eggs, Skagit River Coho and Chinook eyed eggs where taken and sold on the open market. This was illegal, but it was so well done that there was no publicly available paper trail. I used to have the limited documentation for this, but it has been lost over time/computers.

The majority of the Coho eggs were sold to France, once the primary market for commercially caught Coho, enabling their hatcheries to become self-sustaining. This move drove the price of Coho to the commercial fleet way down.

Skagit River Coho and Chinook eyed eggs were sold to the Midwest, creating the present-day populations of those fish in the Great Lakes region. The short fall of these species returning to the fishery was blamed on “overfishing” by the commercial fleet, even though every fish caught was meticulously recorded and counted toward the Washington Department of Fisheries species set quotas.

The only harvests not officially counted were the sport-caught fish which were managed by estimates - so many boats, so many days, so many rods = number of fish caught.

Later on, the biologists determined the wild Tahuya River Coho were “a thorn in their side” and placed a weir in the river, catching each returning Coho run, until none remained to spawn.

Why are King & Coho salmon so small? Because its easier to take small fish in the hatchery ponds and spawn them, then the large examples. Thus over time, the fish become smaller and smaller, until they are a fraction of the weight and size as the original fish in the run. These small fish are thought to put up a longer, better fight for the sport fishermen. So they have become more desirable at 5-7 pounds or less, when the original Chinook ranged from 50-30 lbs and the Coho from 10-25 lbs. The smaller fish pass through the legally set size of commercial gillnets, making catches meager and the price even lower.

Excerpt from the article “Overfishing”:
October 1995: The Neets Bay hatchery harvest recovery seiner alone caught Seventeen Million (17,000,000) chum salmon! What happened to most of them? Egged, ground and dumped. Why? Because processors have no room to store the meat, and because there is no way to sell them for a profit. The only profit comes from the sale of the eggs to Japan.

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An excerpt from an online conversation with a sports fisherman in 1980 something:

“Robert: I gotta ask though, if Bert Shanks was so bad, who is going to be able to play the political game to get through the hoops with the Commission and still have the scientific credentials to run the WDF&G dept. and, and, save the fish?

“Me: The short answer is no one.

“The last time we had a director that had any scientific fisheries credentials was in the 50’s under Milo Moore. Since he was forced out, his view point is that the department has systematically destroyed the salmon thru deliberate kills, manipulation of gene pools, radiological experiments, etc. He wrote several scathing indictments of WDF, which I have not been able to get.

“Once the nation’s fisheries became politicized - the Magnuson Act - that was the death knell for the fish.

“Take the politics out, restore scientific management, and there is a slim chance of success, so much damage has been done by the politicians/political forces in and outside of the WDF.

“BTW we [ salmon gillnetters ] are not a “political force” - there aren’t enough of us left to vote anyone in or out of office. Besides, politics is totally alien to most fishermen - fishing and being political, just doesn’t work. Try being political - talking/thinking politics the next time you are on the water, see how many fish you catch.

“In the 70’s we had to “bring” a lawyer along, in the 80’s “bring” a politician, in the 90’s there were so many politicians aboard, the fisherman had to stay home.”

—
When I left the fishery in 2000, the traditional fishing areas for commercial fishing were shrunk to almost nothing to allow more fish to pass through to the Tribes and sport fisheries. The areas where we used to catch “bright” Chum salmon (which fetched a good price), were closed, and the open areas where set closer to the river mouths [ places never fished historically ]; areas where the Chums were no longer “bright” [ like a Coho ], but dark, mottled and fanged, ready to spawn and die.

Fisheries were no longer managed strictly by quotas harvested, but by the average amount of money a boat could catch: 150 boats in an area, total quota set, days open, prices per pound = amount of money a fisherman could earn. This artificially set number was designed to bankrupt fishermen and drive them out of business, selling their permits back to the State and their boats for pennies on the dollar to whomever would buy them - usually a tribal member who were regulated by his tribe not the state.

More info on request.

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