San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Salmon opener: Mysteries, mayhem
Mystery and magic arrive next Sunday with the opening of salmon season. The potential for fishing mayhem is along for the ride.
For thousands, the salmon opener means months of buildup with no clear idea of what awaits next weekend off the Bay Area coast. This year’s opener, delayed for months by new rules, has become a mystery challenge.
One year — which had only a fair forecast for the opener — we cruised at dawn past the Golden Gate and made a right turn toward Duxbury off the Marin coast, the target spot for the Golden Gate Fleet. At Middlegrounds, the fish finder lit up with an abundance of bait right under our boat. Most of the fleet was to the north, steaming ahead full blast.
“What the heck.” With all the bait showing up on the screen, we stopped, dropped a line and hooked up instantly with a 15-pound chrome-colored salmon. Two more lines went down, and two more big salmon were on. By radio, we alerted the fleet and all the boats made U-turns to join us. By the time they showed up, we already were closing in on two-fish limits for all aboard. When three or more salmon are buttoned at once, the scene can turn into absolute bedlam. If you are hooked up, the energy transfer from fish to line to rod can feel like you are getting juiced by 110 volts. If you manage to fight the fish to the boat, and the net swoops down for the victory, there’s an elation that is rarely matched in the outdoors.
There’s also the magic of being on the water, watching the sunrise from a boat through the Golden Gate, the squawks of the birds and the familiar smell of the old salt air. If you’ve been
out on the briny green and hooked up with a big salmon, you are likely imprinted by all of these sensations.
Then there is the logic aspect. You can eat salmon all summer for the price of the trip, most of which are in the $100 to $120
range. Commercial fishing restrictions this year are likely to push the price of fresh trollcaught king salmon to $10 to $13 a pound at the market. If you can catch one or two 10-pounders (or bigger), it doesn’t take a CPA to figure out the relative value of the trip.
If only fishing was that easy, eh? It isn’t, of course. Mysteries and wild cards include weather, wind and seas, salmon numbers, locations, baitfish, ocean signs and to make sure you have booked your trip. And sometimes the fish decide to bite, sometimes they just plain don’t. Wind/sea conditions: The issue this month has been the wind out of the northwest. For weeks, it has been caterwauling across the Gulf of the Farallones. On a typical day last week, it was at 12 mph at 10 a.m. outside the Golden Gate, 20 mph at the S.F. West Buoy (about 12 miles west of the Golden Gate), and 25 mph at the Farallon Islands. Elsewhere, it was 21 at the Half Moon Bay Weather Buoy and 21 at Point Reyes. The good news is that the north winds have set off an upwelling, and with it, brought cold water to the surface (50.5 degrees at the S.F. weather buoy).
Salmon numbers: The National Marine Fisheries Service predicts more than 229,000 salmon will be available this year on the Bay Area coast — nearly identical to last year’s forecast of more than 230,000. The numbers are well down from peak years, and some thought last year would be a dud. But there were sustained periods of good catches for the Golden Gate Fleet and a few sieges of fishing mayhem out of Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay. Most would be happy to match last year’s catches.
Locations: Most are planning to get out at dawn, before the winds peak, and stay inshore, where the winds are lighter. Out the Golden Gate, for instance, most are planning to fish along the Marin coast, Double Point to Duxbury, somewhat in the wind shadow of Point Reyes. Out of Half Moon Bay, the area from the golf course to the Deep Reef has been good in past years, and has a lot of interest.
Reports: As often happens in good years, anglers aboard deep sea trips venturing to the legal areas for rockfish at the Farallon Islands and reefs along the Marin coast have occasionally caught (and released) salmon by accident, a sign that salmon are in the area. Whale watching boats report acres of krill as the primary feed and, in some cases, juvenile anchovies. Out of Half Moon Bay, the New Captain Pete ventured past Pigeon Point Lighthouse and reported green water, that is, not much feed, all the way to Davenport. For boaters out of Pillar Point Harbor, the message here is that there is no reason to venture long distances south.
Down south: Out of Morro Bay, where the season has been open, there have been some good days for salmon, and many believe that school of fish will come north this month to Monterey Bay. Salmon have been scarce in the Monterey region, and most anglers have switched to sure-thing limit rockfish trips. A few reports out of Santa Cruz have reported lots of bait, birds and whales outside of Soquel Hole.