California has reopened its lucrative salmon fisheries after a 36-month hiatus but kept commercial fisheries shut.
The state’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife (CDFW) on April 15, 2025 outlined limited openings for the sporting harvest.
This limitation follows recommendations by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) that ocean stock are still recovering from adverse climate.
Similar suggestions led to the belated 2025 start of the most important fishery on the West Coast, namely that of dungeness crabs.
Unlike crabs, however, recreational salmon fishing along the Oregon-California coastline and the U.S.-Mexico border will be in short windows.
The recreational harvest will begin June 7 to 8 on the above fisheries, with a maximum catch of 7,000 chinook.
In case the summer limit comes short, the CDFW will reopen the fisheries on July 5-6 and then end July and August.
The fall recreational guideline will then begin September 4-7 on the San Francisco Bay area, for a total 7,500 chinook. If this is unattained, the fisheries will further reopen late September and October.
By using little windows for fishing with followup lengthy closures, CDFW will be making it easy to track catching limits.
Harvest guidelines include a daily limit of 2 chinooks per fisherman, each at least 20 inches long.
Commercial Fisheries Hit Hard
While anglers will be scrambling for spots, commercial fishermen will be having no consolation after PFMC recommended further shutdown.
According to CDFW’s director Charlton H. Bonham, the fish stock is “still recovering from severe drought.”
He added that this is despite the implementation of the current fishing moratorium since 2022, and helpful back-to-back cold winters.
Especially aggravating the recovery are the still-depleted interior spawning places such as the all-important Sacramento river.
It therefore looks like only sportsmen will enjoy a limited go at salmon fisheries in California this season. But as the statistics below reveal, the restriction only understates what used to be a major commercial sector.
California Salmon Fisheries Statistics
Before a 2022 commercial fishing ban, California’s salmon industry was worth $1.4 billion and created 23,000 jobs. At $13,848,507 in annual returns, chinook salmon fisheries were California’s fourth biggest fish sub-sector by value in 2020. Only dungeness crab, squid and spiny lobster earned more. The sector had even a spillover effect in Oregon, whose $700 million annual salmon revenue partly gained from inter-state sales.
How has the Golden State’s salmon sector performed lately?
In the mid-2000s, California’s salmon landings began to depreciate, then picked up till 2020, after which drought hit. In 2006, both California and Oregon saw a drop in landings by 83% from 2005 or 87% from 2004. Actual commercial landings in 2006 for California were at 1.04 million pounds, worth $5.3 million. This was less than half 2005’s returns which had hit $12.7 million at the then dollar rate. Before 2022 when commercial fisheries closed, landings had increased to 2,627,115 pounds, up from 2,204,939 pounds in 2020.
Which is California’s key salmon species?
Although coho and other species pervade domestic aquaculture, it is chinook salmon that runs the show in pelagic waters. In 2020, the state’s chinook salmon landings totaled 1,915,498 pounds, with an ex-vessel value of $13,848,507.