Business & Tech

Salmon Season Opens Saturday; Sport Closures Expected Later

The season is predicted to start strong, but have some closures later. Post pics of your catch here and let us know where the fishing was good. We won't spoil your secret site.

The sport fishing season for salmon opens Saturday and the waters outside Santa Cruz are expected to be a strong fishing ground, according to the Golden Gate Salmon Association.

The fishing grounds south of Point Arena in Mendocino to Pigeon Point are first to open. The commercial season starts May 1.

 Recreational anglers will be allowed to catch two salmon per day that are at least 24 inches long.

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Sport anglers are looking forward to what should be decent fishing this season based on predictions from the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, according to Golden Gate Salmon Association Executive Director John McManus.  Recent reports indicate good conditions for salmon exist in offshore waters from Bodega Bay to Monterey. 

Sport salmon fishing will likely close sometime in June and/or July below Pt. Arena in order to avoid take of protected winter run king salmon which mix with other salmon stocks, including the targeted fall run kings.  Details of where to close and for how long will be resolved at a meeting of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council from April 6 to the 11 in Portland, Oregon.

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 Salmon fishermen acknowledge that most winter run salmon are killed by water diversion in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Bay Delta, not by fishing activity.  Salmon fishermen may be penalized again in seasons to come if damage to the winter run at the delta pumps isn’t curtailed, according to the Golden Gate Association. 

 “It’s basically unfair that the delta water diversion pumps kill thousands of winter run salmon every year and yet fishermen are penalized if we catch more than a relative handful,” said McManus. 

 Low rainfall totals for the state are also a storm cloud on the horizon for fishermen, the association said in a press release.  Many worry that this year’s crop of baby salmon currently migrating from their birth rivers in the Central Valley to the ocean may not make it. 

 Under natural conditions, spring snow melt and runoff would flush the poor swimming baby salmon safely out to sea while giving them some camouflage in muddy, turbulent water.  But California’s rivers are anything but natural with stored water in reservoirs held back and promised to too many.

 “The Golden Gate Salmon Association is at the table speaking up for the water and habitat needed by salmon and salmon dependent communities,” said McManus.  “As long as we get the freshwater needed by salmon, our coastal communities will benefit.” 

The Golden Gate Salmon Association is a coalition of salmon advocates that includes commercial and recreational salmon fisherman, businesses, restaurants, tribes, environmentalists, elected officials, families and communities that rely on salmon. GGSA’s mission is to protect and restore California’s largest salmon producing habitat comprised of the Central Valley river’s that feed the Bay-Delta ecosystem and the communities that rely on salmon as a long-term, sustainable, commercial, recreational and cultural resource.

 Currently, California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity annually and about half that much in economic activity and jobs again in Oregon. The industry employs tens of thousands of people from Santa Barbara to northern Oregon. 

To see a video documenting hurdles salmon encountered during the 2012 spawning season in the Central Valley, click here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG4a2Dk_u2g&feature=em-uploademail


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