Closed for a 3rd year: What Does the Future Hold for California’s Salmon Fishery?
Photo courtesy of the Golden State Salmon Association
By Mark C Anderson, May 8, 2025
If pondering the extinction of the California salmon fishery sounds dramatic, or premature, perhaps you’re not paying close enough attention.
Consider this: Even if struggling salmon do make a comeback from a disastrous combination of environmental conditions and problematic water management, the infrastructure and market that make a fishery viable, at least for the Monterey Bay fleet, might be too compromised to survive, let alone thrive.
That thought is frequently on the minds of local fishermen, and now as much as ever, since the Pacific Fishery Management Council (Pacific Council) yet again determined their fate at their recent meeting in San Jose, April 9-15.
The short version of what members of the Pacific Council decided on salmon fishing, across six marathon days of hearings (that covered a lot of other topics too), is that the season will be closed for the third straight year in California, with limited allowances for recreational salmon fishing.
The longer version of the decision gets complicated.
It also involves a first-person look at the Pacific Council’s inner workings, an insane salmon derby, and real hope for recovery, which is why it’s important to sort through.
•••
An ominous finding from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) preceded the Pacific Council meeting.
On February 26, CDFW hosted its annual 2025 Salmon Information Meeting and announced what the Golden State Salmon Association (GSSA) characterizes as “an incredibly low” ocean abundance forecast of 165,655 Sacramento River Fall-Run Chinook Salmon.
Photo Courtesy of Mark Anderson
That falls far short of the historically paltry 213,622 fall-run salmon ocean count that was projected a year earlier.
One major reason for the dire assessment, cited by CDFW and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): terrible river conditions for baby salmon to travel out to the ocean, namely low water levels and high river temperatures.
The Pacific Council’s decision, then, doesn’t come as a shock—and many fishermen would rather see a shutdown than a symbolic and severely narrow commercial season of a few days.
That evokes what salmon fisherman Tim Obert told the Fisheries Trust when the 2023 season was cancelled.
“The amount of fish we’d be allowed to take would be gone in a couple of days,” he said. “The money it costs to rig a boat isn’t worth that.”
The message from Obert, who sits on several salmon advisory boards and works closely with the Pacific Council’s Salmon Advisory Subpanel in setting the commercial salmon fishing models, hasn’t changed much in two years.
“For us to take away from something that’s at the bottom of its productivity is irresponsible as a commercial fleet,” he says. “We’re not looking to harvest whatever we can get, we’re looking for the fishery to be rebuilt.”
Corey Ridings, a doctoral candidate for ecology at the University of Washington and a longtime Ocean Conservancy staffer who represents one of California’s three seats on the Pacific Council, adds perspective.
“Everybody wants fishing—the council, the state, we all do—but at the end of the day, there’s not enough fish,” she says, “and that’s for a lot of reasons, many tied to drought and management on land.” Essentially, she believes that the risk to the fish population isn't worth the reward.
Given the prohibition on commercial fishing, the go-ahead for recreational anglers proves welcome—but also complex and controversial.
The sport fishing opportunity is welcome to charter operators and business owners because, for a once-thriving fishery whose season historically ran from May to October, two years is a long time to wait.
“Everybody’s going to be so excited!” Riding says. “Salmon is so cool! It’s part of our culture! It’s part of California!”
Photo courtesy of Mark Anderson
The decision is complex because, as fishermen from San Diego to Eureka all charge out with exuberance, that’s a lot of boats flying down ramps and around harbors.
As stakeholders testified before the Pacific Council—and chattered in the halls—there will be at least a little chaos.
“It’s going to be crazy,” Obert says.
Added complexity comes with the schedule itself. The first opportunity happens June 7-8, with additional dates to follow (July 5-6, July 31-August 3 and August 25-31)—should the energized fishing community not reach the annual limit of 7,000, which experts think will happen that first weekend.
Additionally, a short fall season, when catch limits are re-extended, happens September 4-7.
And, finally, the decision is proving controversial because: 1) sport fishing activity is virtually impossible to accurately track and regulate, given limited state resources; 2) the intense rush by fishermen to get in the water may be unsafe; 3) with that many lines in the water, even a two-fish catch limit (with a minimum size), multiplied by thousands of anglers, presents what Ridings calls “a conservation concern”; and 4) commercial fishers must sit this one out, while still waiting for promised relief funds for the 2023 lost season.
“You do have the fairness side of it,” Ridings adds.
That all gets at the very purpose the Pacific Council was created, to uphold and carry out the federal legislation guarding our nation’s marine resources. Included in the act are 10 national standards…
Given all this, you could say there’s a lot for the elected members and staff of the Pacific Council to balance. For five weeklong meetings per year (at least in the Pacific region), the trick is to bring science, stakeholder input, and management process together in sometimes complex ways, the proverbial seafood sausage being made.
“I joke about the PFMC being a mini reflection of American democracy,” Ridings says. “It’s designed to be slow, intentionally participatory, with public access to decision makers, and transparent.”
I attended in person, for several hours of a single day, and came away groggy given the sheer volume of charts, biomass numbers, species assessments, harvest specifications, management measures, side meetings, governmental bodies and public comments.
•••
Fortunately, there are tangible and measurable reasons for hope.
Photo courtesy of Mark Anderson
Reason number one: Recent rainy seasons have fishermen believing 2026 might be a decent year.
Reason number two: There are ways the community can continue to help Monterey Bay fishermen, including supporting local nonprofits like the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project; shopping for local catch, including halibut, rockfish, sand dabs, and tuna; and supporting dock sales.
Reason number three: There is some relief on the horizon for the local fleet, three years on. The Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission is, at last, administering relief payments from the 2023 closure. Applications from affected commercial fishers must be submitted by midnight on June 1, 2025.
Reason number four: The triumphant return of chinook salmon to the Klamath River, which was un-dammed and re-wilded after 100 years, pleasantly shocking river biologists.
That resurgence, after a century, gets back to the thought of extinction. Ridings acknowledges that it’s worthwhile to consider the possibility.
“I’m worried about it,” she says, noting that we need look no further than the California state flag for a reminder. “The history of our state was extraordinarily abundant. We can clearly see we’re not there anymore. With everything happening to our environment and land water use, agriculture [needs], and pesticide use, there are a lot of challenges for us to confront, so I don’t think it’s unrealistic to be thinking about.”
She does offer a subtle vocabulary switch, swapping extirpation—as in the elimination of a species in a specific area—in for extinction.
“Extinction by definition is final,” she says. “Salmon has shown itself to be so resilient. There is an ability for them to come back.”
Obert adds wider context.
“The real extinction here isn’t in the salmon themselves, it’s the actual industry—the small and independent boats, how the grocery stores make purchases, how consumers order in restaurants, how dock resources are maintained,” he says. “When we’re not having the opportunity for local salmon for years on years, people move onto other things.”
That serves as a reminder that, the next time you sit down in a restaurant and see “local salmon” on the menu, support your local fishery and ask for more information.
For now, you can be sure it’s not wild-caught in California or anywhere near Monterey Bay.
It could be from Oregon, Washington, or Alaska, or it might be farmed (and not all farmed salmon is equal).
Fortunately, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch salmon index makes navigating that easier, even if the future for the wild salmon fishery remains much more tenuous.