Quick Take
For the third year in a row, California’s commercial salmon fishing season has been canceled due to critically low fish stocks, dealing another major blow to the state's struggling fishing industry. While commercial boats remain docked, limited recreational salmon fishing will be allowed statewide on select dates this summer and fall.
For the third year in a row, there will be no commercial salmon fishing season in California.
On Tuesday, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, the regulatory body that makes decisions about the salmon fisheries on the West Coast, voted to not open the commercial season this spring due to low stock numbers in the state.
The recommendation will be adopted by the National Marine Fisheries Service in mid-May.
In a win for sport fishers, there will be a limited opening for recreational fishing statewide in two-day to four-day increments throughout the summer. The dates are: June 7-8, July 5-6, July 31-Aug. 3 and Aug. 25-31.
A fall sport fishing season will open in ocean waters between Point Reyes and Point Sur – which includes Santa Cruz County and Monterey Bay – Sept. 4-7, with the possibility of other dates opening in late September and October if there’s still fish available in the quota, according to the California Department of Fish & Wildlife.
“California fishing communities were hoping for some small recovery reflected by the science, but just isn’t there,” said Melissa Mahoney, director of Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust, a nonprofit organization that supports the fishing industry in Monterey Bay. “The tough times just keep getting tougher. My heart breaks for fishers. It’s not their fault – it’s what’s happening on land with river management and water policy.”
Santa Cruz fisher Tim Obert was part of a group of commercial fishers who shared their opinions behind the scenes as the council was still assessing data on salmon populations and the impact to the fishing industry of canceling the season before making a decision. Although it is a hit to his livelihood, Obert said he believes that keeping the commercial season closed rather than opening it for a handful of days is the right choice for the industry in the long run.
“The risk was not worth the reward,” said Obert. “The future is what we’re looking for, and having the opportunity to be viable and profitable as the years progress is more important than scraping the bottom of the barrel right now with a short salmon season.”
All salmon fishing, including sport fishing, has been closed for the past two years. Ongoing issues related to drought, climate change and water management have caused salmon stocks in California to plummet, and the salmon fishing industry along with it.
The salmon fishery traditionally opens for commercial fishers May 1 through mid-October, and has historically provided the bulk of Monterey Bay fishers’ annual income. When the season was cancelled for the first time in 2023, it caused significant financial strain on an already struggling industry. Those impacts were compounded when the season was closed again in 2024. Federal disaster relief aimed at softening the economic impact of the closure in 2023 was approved for members of the salmon industry, but hasn’t yet been distributed.
“[The council] explored every opportunity and turned over every stone to look for ways to find meaningful opportunity this year, and ultimately, a commercial season didn’t work out for 2025,” said fisheries councilmember Marci Yaremko. “There is hope that sitting on the sidelines for one more year will improve the chances for more meaningful opportunities in 2026.”
The handful of sport fishing days were “designed with an immense amount of caution,” and the projected number of fish that will be caught won’t affect the species stocks in the Klamath or Sacramento River areas, said Yaremko. Monitoring the short two- to four-day seasons is a new hurdle, and will require significant planning to ensure all of the catch is recorded accurately, she said.
The decision to close commercially while opening recreational dates wasn’t unanimous. At the meeting on Tuesday, councilmember Corey Ridings predicted a surge of interest by sport fishers to catch salmon on those dates, and voiced concerns that the number of fish could be accurately tracked in that amount of time.
Allotments shouldn’t favor one sector over the other, no matter how small, she said. “Asking the commercial fleet to stay tied up while we have recreational fishing is very difficult, even if it’s a small opportunity,” said Ridings.
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FOR THE RECORD: This story has been updated to clarify a comment by Corey Ridings.
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