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Salmon season flops: Drought years cut North Coast fishing

James Dunn, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL
Soon after the commercial salmon season opened on Aug. 1, Chris Lawson steered his 53-foot boat named Seaward out of the marina at Bodega Bay into ocean waters where he figured chinook salmon would travel. He spent the day trolling, his lines carefully prepared to entice the spirited, iridescent fish.
There were plenty of salmon, but mostly two-year-olds too small for a commercial fisherman to keep.
Lawson shook off nearly 100 short fish from his lines and kept just seven longer than the minimum size — 27 inches. He snagged $9 a pound for 63 pounds, yielding $567 for the day’s work before fuel expenses and pay to one crew member, who gets 20 percent.
Local stores, including Andy’s in Sebastopol and Whole Foods markets, sell fresh salmon for $22 to $30 a pound. Cut into fillets, a 9-pound fish yields roughly half that in final product.
“Seven hours, we had seven fish,” Lawson said. “You make a little bit of money. There were a lot of short fish,” said Lawson, interviewed alongside his boat on Aug. 10. “It looks better for next year. Recreational guys are having an OK season.” Their size limit is smaller.
“We’re just harassing the shorties,” said Lawson, who has fished for 41 of his 56 years. “Let ‘em be.”Some fishermen “are hurting so they’ll bring them in anyway,” Lawson said. “They need a paycheck.”
The salmon season off Sonoma and Marin coastlines was severely trimmed this year. Usually it starts in May and the best fishing months go through July. But the 2017 season just started in August and runs to the end of September. On Sept. 1, the minimum commercial size drops an inch to 26 inches, according to California’s Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.
Read more at: Salmon season flops: Drought years cut North Coast fishing | The North Bay Business Journal

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Uncertain salmon season launches in Bodega Bay 

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
The rising hum of activity in the port of Bodega Bay over recent days reveals an unexpected level of interest in the commercial salmon season that starts today, despite a three-month delay and what’s been an extremely grim outlook for the beleaguered fishery.
A large proportion of the local fleet has been gearing up to head out to open ocean, ready to drop their lines and test the waters. But the satisfied, even boisterous enthusiasm that once characterized the marinas during preseasons past has diminished during years of struggle in the fishing industry, some say.
A time that once carried the promise of hard work and dependable results now brims with uncertainty.
“It just isn’t there anymore, the old vim and vigor, and the excitement about getting ready for an opener, and this kind of stuff,” veteran fisherman Dan Kammerer, 75, said, recalling laughter and jokes that used to be shared along the docks. “It just isn’t fun anymore.”
Chinook salmon, also called king salmon, were once a prized staple of the North Coast’s fishing grounds, ranked just ahead or behind Dungeness crab in annual landings. But the population has been in severe decline, due in part to historic drought and disrupted ocean conditions that have reduced the survival of young salmon in freshwater streams and coastal waters.
After two dreadful seasons, state and federal wildlife biologists last spring forecast the lowest chinook salmon stocks off the Pacific Coast since 2009, when both sport and commercial fisheries were closed for the second consecutive year.
Read more: Uncertain salmon season launches in Bodega Bay | The Press Democrat

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State’s commercial Dungeness crab fishery to remain closed

Christi Warren, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
The commercial Dungeness crab fishery will remain closed until the health advisory that halted the season can be lifted for the entire California coast, or south of the Mendocino/Sonoma county line, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Wednesday.
The decision came down thanks to feedback from members of the commercial Dungeness crab fishery, said Jordan Traverso, deputy director of communications for the CDFW.
“Well, it’s way better than it was,” said Stan Carpenter, president of the Fishermen’s Marketing Association of Bodega Bay, noting the action is more fair than opening the season in some places and not others. “It could be better, though. You could close the recreational fishing as well. There are still people eating those crabs.”
“I understand that there are people suffering economic losses from this closure,” Charlton H. Bonham, CDFW Director, said in a press release. “However, the majority of the commercial fleet tells me they want a statewide opener or could live with an opener that adheres to traditional management areas, which would provide the utmost protection against someone falling ill from domoic acid poisoning.”
Source: State’s commercial Dungeness crab fishery to remain closed | The Press Democrat