"Salmon season cut down to a fillet"

[CatyMae n Steve]

This from the Oregonian 4/5/06 -- looks like we might get some ocean fishin!:

Salmon season cut down to a fillet

Commercial fishing would be sliced to 36 days under federal guidelines offered Tuesday

Wednesday, April 05, 2006
PETER SLEETH
SACRAMENTO -- In a hint of what will await diners and fishermen alike in coming months, a key federal fishing council voted Tuesday for a severely limited commercial salmon trolling season off the Oregon Coast, while signaling recreational fishing will be allowed to proceed.

Meeting here all week, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council adopted preliminary guidelines for the 2006 salmon season.

They would include a mere 36 days of commercial trolling off the Oregon Coast, compared with 208 days in 2004 and 96 days last year. By Friday, the council is expected to approve a final recommendation, but any changes from Tuesday are likely to reduce, not increase, opportunities for fishermen to land salmon.

"It's not a season at all," said Don Stevens, who works for the Oregon Salmon Commission. "In 208 days a guy can go out and make $50,000 to $70,000. In 36 days you can't make nothing at all."

Recreational fishing by charter boats and private boats would be reduced but not eliminated -- a key concession to coastal communities that depend on tourist dollars.

The West Coast was potentially facing a closure of the entire 2006 season for 700 miles along the California and Oregon coasts up to north of Manzanita, because a critical run of chinook salmon from the Klamath River is at dangerously low numbers. The federal government wants to shut down most fishing, because scientists predict that too many accidental catches of Klamath River fall chinook salmon could lead the fish on a path of no return.

For consumers, a closure would mean a shortage of ocean-caught salmon this year, while the fishing industry could face dramatic losses leading to shuttered coastal businesses and bankrupt fishermen.

Tuesday's vote to adopt preliminary rules for the season put the council at odds with the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is advocating a near-complete shutdown of the commercial season and possibly the recreational season, too.

The clash is more than academic: While the council can make recommendations, only the Commerce Department has the authority to make final decisions. And the Commerce Department is signaling it is in no mood for more than minimal fishing.

In a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy season, the council also adopted a preliminary plan for salmon fishing from north of Manzanita to the Canadian border. Both commercial and recreational fishermen would be allowed about 65 percent of last year's catch, mostly in the summer months. The reduced fishery is designed to protect weak stocks of salmon from the Columbia River Basin.

The council's meeting drew a record crowd of between 500 and 600 people to a hotel conference room -- mostly fishermen, their families and owners of related businesses.

The sometimes raucous crowd testified to failing businesses and families in dire need if the closure goes forward.

Speaker after speaker pleaded for a full season, waving placards and shouting catcalls to the council. They questioned the science behind the decisions and blamed failed Bush administration policies in the Klamath Basin as the reason for the salmon's demise, not fishing.

One small boy held a sign, "Let me fish for salmon with my Dad."

To loud applause, the interim director of the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission opened his testimony with a rallying cry:

"We need a season," said Roy Elicker.

Ralph Brown, a Curry County commissioner from the southern Oregon Coast, said families would go out of business if a closure is pressed.

"There's a whole lot of these folks, if you don't provide a solution, who won't be here next year," he said.

In Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, congressional representatives from Oregon and Washington pressed William T. Hogarth, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, to declare an immediate disaster for the fishing industry. The declaration would allow Congress to move forward on a bill to direct money to be paid to fishermen for their losses.

NOAA is a part of the Commerce Department. In a letter to Hogarth, the representatives also asked for an assessment of how to fix problems in the Klamath Basin, to prevent future recurrences of this year's troubles.

The Klamath River begins in Southern Oregon and runs through Northern California before entering the ocean south of Crescent City, Calif.

The river has numerous, long-term problems, ranging from dams without fish ladders to irrigation withdrawals to damage from logging and mining.

Once, the river was among the three top producers of salmon on the Pacific Coast. Today, its runs are imperiled, with three listed under the Endangered Species Act.

[C-Hawk]

Steve,
You can thank the current administration for this. They would rather grow potatoes then keep water in the Klamath for the fish.
But, I won't get political--- yada yada yada

[CatyMae n Steve]

current administration's directive is to remove (I believe) 2 of the dams on Kalamath or provide fishladders that the fish will and CAN) use, as those 2 are so high, fish would NOT use 'em...and provide the flow needed....I don't agree much with the 'CA' and I hope it's not too little, too late. I think the time frame is 2 years....their license was NOT reissued, so maybe the gov't means business....just gotta keep track of whose red tape outweights whose!

Caty