Salmon Season 2024 Realities and a Call for Water Policy Change

By Mark Anderson, April 8, 2024

Photo courtesy of Jared Davis

While uncertainty is inseparable from fishing, the mystery surrounding the future for West Coast salmon fishermen gives the uncertainty fresh intensity.

That, in turn, comes with complexity. As San Francisco Bay Area charter fishing boat captain Jared Davis puts it, completing a “fully encompassing dive into the challenges faced by the fishing industry would require an Encyclopedia Britannica-type collection of volumes.”

So let’s start with what we do know, in basic terms and more complicated frameworks, for better or for worse. 

And finish with reasons for hope.

First things first: In years with a healthy fishery, salmon season runs from May to October. But almost a decade of drought leading to low flows and inhospitable spawning conditions in the Sacramento and Klamath watersheds — our last two remaining strongholds for salmon in California — has spelled disaster for salmon. 

In 2022, salmon returns to the river systems were so limited that 2023’s season was canceled outright. This year’s projections are similarly stark, which has every insider the Fisheries Trust talked to for this piece predicting another full closure was coming, and as predicted, CDFW recommended a full closure of CA ocean salmon fisheries yesterday (April 7th). 

Little of that is a result of overfishing, which may come as a surprise to some not familiar with the complexities: The main culprits are climate change and water policy. Drought and water diversions have driven down vital flows while increasing in river water temperatures — killing salmon eggs and young fish — and dams have blocked hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of vital spawning habitat. (A promising development there: Dams are coming down on the Klamath, presenting a model for other rivers. Read more here.)

The rules meant to foster West Coast fishery health are the responsibility of both state and federal managers, governed through a process led by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC). The PFMC meets five times annually, with meetings in March and April heavily focused on salmon. 

This year’s three management alternatives for salmon fisheries —hashed out at PFMC’s March 2024 meeting in Fresno —have been described by Rachel Becker, a water policy reporter at nonprofit and nonpartisan state capitol watchdog CalMatters, as “a devastating blow for an industry still reeling from last year’s closure.” (That comes as a part of a wider piece “‘Simply catastrophic’: California salmon season to be restricted or shut down.”)

“The [Governor Gavin] Newsom administration has come under fire from conservationists and the fishing industry for actions that could jeopardize salmon,” Becker writes, “including waiving water quality requirements in the Delta and backing a controversial pact with major water suppliers related to diversions from the Bay-Delta watershed.” 

Alternatives one and two for 2024 lay out severely abbreviated seasons with strict catch limits for commercial and sport fishing. 

Option three: complete shut down for the second straight year. 

Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association (GSSA), tracks fishery health and management updates as closely as anyone. 

At a public hearing on March 25 in Santa Rosa, he listened as multiple fishermen and business owners testified about the existing and compounded hardships they would face, resulting in the possibility of putting their boats up for sale, as seafood distributor sales dip dramatically.

“Instead of planning and getting ready for a traditional salmon season, making sure boats are ready to go, fishermen scheduling trips with charter boats and river guides, bait and tackle shops stocking shelves, hotels prepping for an influx of tourists and on and on, the salmon industry is bracing for a potentially highly restricted, shortened season to a complete closure, again, to help save the species and the industry,” Artis says. “All those salmon families and businesses up and down the coast and into our rivers are worried about how they’re going to pay the bills again this year in a disaster that could have, and should have, been avoided.”

He points to decisions by state and federal water policy managers to weaken flow and temperature protections for salmon as the biggest way disaster could’ve been prevented. 

“Warning signs have been flashing for years,” he says.

The good news there is that, in the future, similar decisions can go other directions.

•••

Many fishermen are OK with a foregone season, because the long game is what matters.

Tim Obert — a full time commercial fisherman out of Santa Cruz — ranks among them. He is an active participant in the PFMC process, volunteers on the California Salmon Council and several other advisory groups, and in normal years makes the vast majority of his revenue from fishing salmon, crab and other coastal species. 

He falls in the camp of concerned fishers and policy advocates who 1) compare what it costs to rig a boat for a trip out and the amount of fish he’d have to catch to make it worthwhile, and 2) observes the health of salmon stock is too tenuous to justify going out.

“The ‘options’ aren’t options,” Obert says. “If we go fishing, we’re scraping the last we can scrape rather than rebuilding the population and taking care of our river systems.”

Sarah Bates, a commercial fisherwoman and outspoken advocate who harbors at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, echoes that. 

“It is a real tragedy to have a closed season, but California fisheries are the most closely managed in the world,” she says. “Any decision that is made to close a fishery is made in the hope that the population will recover so we can continue to harvest them in the future…California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) doesn’t have tools to manage at such low abundance.”

Charter Captain Davis, whose Salty Lady charter sails out of Richmond, also believes another year's closure is best, saying a fix to river diversions should be priority one.

“The underlying issue with salmon is clearly water, or a lack thereof, in the rivers that salmon depend upon to successfully spawn and reproduce their next generation,” he says. “This is obviously compounded by years of below average rainfall or drought, but a huge part of the issue involves diversions from our Sacramento River system to sustain an unsustainable corporate agriculture industry in the Central Valley. It's not a new issue, and there’s no doubt that volumes could be written on that alone, but it is getting worse and the solutions are a very tough lift.”

Amid the daunting conditions, there are strategies to cope — and reasons for optimism.

The Trust laid out many of those strategies with the 2023 piece, “Disaster can be…good,” which points out, “A total shutdown catches people’s attention and brings more resources to bear. Lawmakers and policy shapers have to take notice and pursue solutions.”

The strategies include: considering the entire ecosystem, from mid-ocean waters to river bed; supporting restoration; buying directly from fishermen at the dock; encouraging healthy dialogue with CDFW; and supporting area fishers by buying non-salmon catch that’s delicious in its own right, from blackcod (i.e. sablefish) and sand dabs to rock cod and halibut (check out the Trust’s guide for buying, storing and preparing local species for more information).

“There are other fish in the sea,” Davis says.

Ned Brown, a GSSA board member and lifelong salmon fisherman, adds additional emphasis on the big-picture ecosystem—adding a challenge to citizens, lawmakers and advocates like him.

“The blinders need to come off— we need to transition from focusing on the battle for salmon scraps to hitting the topic of water policy as hard as we can, and I mean this in a very public and specific way,” he says. “Why have historically agreed to water flow requirements been — and continue to be — waived?” 

Brown calls for more transparency around diversions authored by Gov. Newsom’s administration, and data-driven water quality measurements to hold it accountable.

“If we don’t fix the water issue, all the hatcheries, trucking, net pens and habitat [restoration] in the world won’t save our salmon,” he says. “Destructive and imbalanced water policy doesn’t seem to get the kind of vital public exposure it deserves.  

“Our state water policy, at its core, is supposed to be guided by the principle of ‘balance of use.’  The scales have been tipped away from salmon, and the quality of our natural waterways.” 

Meanwhile, local political leaders have been given a reality check by fishermen themselves. A half dozen fishermen and staff from the Fisheries Trust met recently with U.S. Congressman Jimmy Panetta to ensure he had clarity on the dire situation, to seek his support for federal funding for salmon recovery and hatchery improvements, and to get support for receiving disaster assistance in a timely way. One solution he had right away: for anyone who applied for a small business loan that is moving slow, contact his in-district office for support. 

An additional glimmer of hope can be found in the fact that fishermen and women simply love to fish. 

A 2023 NOAA survey of West Coast fishermen found that four out of every five strongly believe being a fisherman is important to them (and 94% agree overall that it’s important).

Bates, who toils as a bookkeeper in down years, helps complete the portrait of an industry eager to find a way through. 

“We have seen a huge proportion of our fleet take non-fishing jobs in the past year or two—mechanics, construction, all kinds of things—because fishing gives us the opportunity to learn a lot of skills, from electricity to engine mechanics to woodworking, which all makes us very qualified for jobs on land.

“But we want to go fishing, to be in the marine ecosystem, to have that independence, to experience the joy of coming home after a successful trip and sharing our catch.”

If you do still desire wild salmon that won’t be coming from Monterey Bay this year, here is a sustainable consumer’s guide to other sources, courtesy of Seafood Watch. Please keep an eye on dock sales this summer for halibut, tuna and various coastal species.