Darrell Ticehurst/Fisheries Issues
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Salmon Season Now Looks Good
Mar. 12 2010, 5:29 PM
Mar. 12 2010, 5:29 PM
Salmon Season Now Looks Good
The PFMC met in Sacramento this week and established the salmon season options for this year. The PFMC April meeting will decide the final season structure from these options. However, because the PFMC did not take emergency action at this meeting it looks as if the April salmon season will happen no matter what. This is because the scheduling of the PFMC meetings is off by a bit with the salmon season dates so they approve the April fishery a year ahead of time and then confirm the rest of the season starting May 1 in April of the same year.
So the options look good and are as follows:
The PFMC met in Sacramento this week and established the salmon season options for this year. The PFMC April meeting will decide the final season structure from these options. However, because the PFMC did not take emergency action at this meeting it looks as if the April salmon season will happen no matter what. This is because the scheduling of the PFMC meetings is off by a bit with the salmon season dates so they approve the April fishery a year ahead of time and then confirm the rest of the season starting May 1 in April of the same year.
So the options look good and are as follows:
Option 1
Ft. Bragg: April 3 through November 14, 24" minimum
San Francisco: April 3 through November 14, 24" minimum
Monterey: April 3 through October 3, 24" minimum
Option 2
Ft. Bragg: April 3-30 and July 1 through November 14, 20" minimum
San Francisco: April 3-30 and July 1 through November 14, 20" minimum
Monterey: April 3-30 and July 1 through October 3, 20" minimum
Option 3
Ft. Bragg: Closed
San Francisco: Closed
Monterey: Closed
It is possible that they would close some part of the season per option 3, but the reality is that there are enough fish for a season, and the mood of the council seemed to be to take advantage of the fishing opportunity, so I expect to see option 1, with option 2 a close second, but only time will tell.
If you are wondering how this is possible to have season when the news has been so full of disaster reports on the salmon returns this year, the answer is that there is nothing anyone can do at this point about that run. The problem was caused by excess pumping of Sacramento River water during the out migration of the salmon smolts three years ago, and wasn’t helped by ocean conditions that were not optimal. However, the PFMC has some pretty sophisticated models that forecast the number of fish returning each year, and the model says that this year’s run is adequate. We need 122,000 fish to return to the river in order to have a normal spawn. The model is predicting that we will get back 245,000 fish. Typically, the recreational fleet only takes about 15% or 35,000 or so this year. So the season looks logical, but the run is low by historical standards, so the fishing might not be that great even though we can fish.
We’ll get final details on April 15 or so.
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