As a result of the crash, which began in about 2007, the fishing season was shortened or entirely closed in 2008, 20, for both commercial and sport fishermen. Things hit rock bottom in 2009, when just 39,000 adult fall-run Chinook salmon returned to spawn in the Sacramento-the lowest number ever recorded (in 2002, by comparison, about 800,000 adult fall-run kings returned to spawn). In fact, the fish seemed on the verge of vanishing. Fishermen will harvest hundreds of thousands by the season’s end in September, and hundreds of thousands more are expected to swim upstream to spawn in the Sacramento River, laying the eggs of tomorrow’s salmon.įor several years, though, salmon fishing was dismal in California. Biologists estimate that more than two million adult salmon are now present in coastal waters-more fish than in the past four seasons combined. Commercial fishermen and recreational fishermen alike are elated, with veterans saying it hasn’t been this good in 15 years.
Because in the ocean waters just off the Central Coast, the Chinook salmon are swarming this summer like they haven’t in years. Photo by Andrew Bland.Ĭalifornia draws millions of visitors each summer with a wide variety of natural and cultural attractions-like Yosemite National Park, whose astounding cliffs are proof of either God or glaciers the brutal but beautiful deserts of the south the astounding Big Sur coast, where cougars and bears roam the upland wilderness as cliffs plunge into the Pacific the frigid North Coast of Mendocino and Humboldt counties, where the redwoods grow and, of course, the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco’s gateway to the wild lands to the north.īut if you were to come west across the country, aiming for the wonderful Golden State, and overshoot your destination by, oh, five or ten miles, you’d still land in a pretty sweet spot. This pair of kings was caught from a kayak.
The beaches of Monterey, California-and nearby sites, like Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium-are a fine place to spend a summer Sunday afternoon, but it’s two miles due west and 100 feet straight down that the salmon are teeming.
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