Will this be the last Salmon fishing ever?
Imagine if the enthusiasm we are seeing for fishing for Salmon was actually the same enthusiasm we had for protecting Salmon spawning grounds from loggers?
And why can’t we have a “Ducks Unlimited” for fish? I mean if the Sacramento valley can turn rice fields into “wildlife preserves” aka: prime duck hunting ground for Ducks Hunters, why can’t tree farmers do things differently to protect Salmon?
So when the Times-Standard announes what may be the last Salmon fishing season ever, notice the enthusiam that Salmon fishing engenders. Ask yourself what can we do to direct this enthusiasm towards protecting our streams so Salmon can continue to breed? –Editor, Voices of Humboldt County
As soon as the season was announced by fishery managers this spring, phone calls for charter boats, hotels and moorings began flooding in. Marina and public safety officials are now putting the final touch on preparations for the mass concentration of fishermen anticipated to arrive in less than a month. ”It’s going to be zoolandish,” said John Marciano at the bait shop at the Trinidad Rancheria pier. All of the Trinidad Harbor moorings are spoken for between Aug. 29 and Sept. 7, he said, and charter boat operators have limited space available. The Rancheria has arranged for extra security and is stockpiling bait, he said, for a short but intense bout of fishing business. http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_12977810
The 10-day season is the only ocean salmon season in the state. A second year of bleak salmon returns to the generally productive Sacramento River closed most of the West Coast to king salmon fishing. But fishermen were able to convince regulators that a salmon boom predicted for the Klamath River could allow a short and geographically tight season in the Eureka and Crescent City region. http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_12977810
The banner year is also expected to draw hundreds of fishermen to the Klamath River with the hope of landing river salmon that are loosely regulated this year. The abundance anomaly flipped the more regular scenario in which the North Coast has the most constrained salmon season. Because of it, many fishermen that would normally motor out of Fort Bragg or Monterey Bay are coming here. ”It’s huge,” said Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce Executive Director J Warren Hockaday. “It’s short, but it’s huge.” http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_12977810
Hockaday said the chance to bring new people to the region’s door is an opportunity to reel them in for the future, by planting a seed that there is a lot to do here. He said the chamber’s staff is working to ensure that inquiring fishermen are steered toward hotels and charter operators that may still have vacancies. The expected influx of fishermen has businesses trying to figure out how to maximize the short-lived but intense season. http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_12977810
How short-lived is tourist fishing for Salmon if we fail to tend to Salmon’s needs?
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Will we continue to allow the timber’s industry higher priority of “growing trees” eventually deny the survivability / existence of Salmon?.
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Salmon season just didn’t turn out like it was supposed to.
In fact, when I go to drop a line tomorrow, Saturday, I’ll be gunning for Pacific halibut unless something really unusual happens. Assuming that the salmon don’t arrive in droves by the end of the season this week, it will have been two years since I’ve landed a king salmon.
It never used to take many salmon to make me happy. As a newcomer here in 2000, when we were allowed to keep only one king salmon per day, I was overjoyed at just a few fish in a summer. A fillet of a good-sized fish was a lot of really good food.
When we were allowed to keep two fish a day, I developed a sizable stack of salmon in my freezer. I traded it for elk and ducks and whatever else my nonfishing friends had. After a couple of years, I found myself getting a little greedy, feeling anxious whenever my two fish weren’t yet in the bottom of the boat.
Then, last year, when the feds shut down salmon season altogether, I felt a different anxiety. It’s not that there aren’t other fish to catch. Salmon aren’t even my favorite fish to eat. A good rockfish or a slab of halibut or a petrale sole is more up my alley.
It is more that there are supposed to be salmon, and plenty of them to eat. The “Totum Salmon,” especially the king salmon, is ours, is mine, is California’s. So how is it that troubling conditions in the very heart of California — the Sacramento River Delta — could lead to such a calamity
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as having no salmon to spare for Californians?
This year, ocean fishermen were initially overjoyed by the allowance of a 10-day salmon fishery in late August and early September. People from all over the state flocked here — the only area open — just for the chance to land a salmon. Most were disappointed.
Having missed opening day due to the weather, I quickly found myself without hope as the reports came in: six-hour trolls without a bite; little coho salmon; kings only available to fishermen with the gear to fish deep.
In times as unfortunate as these past two years, I’m compelled to fire the engines of optimism, to find something redeeming. I think I’ve found it. First, we’re very likely to have a reasonable salmon season next year.
The best thing, however, is that whatever salmon I bring home I will appreciate, like I did my first year out on the ocean. That was when every fish was a rare and royal gem, as they are, and as they should be.
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_13285731?source=rss
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