West Coast trailers 'down to stems and seeds'

摘要

It is springtime, and fishermen cannot help but think upon the prospects for the coming year and how best to prepare for them. Spring is a time of hope, haul outs, and, this year, a little glance over the shoulder to 2008. Salmon troilers didn't dropa lead in the water for all of the summer of 2008 and don't really know if they will this year either. The year 2008 was the first time there was no salmon season below Cape Falcon, Ore., due to a low return of fall Chinooks in the Sacramento River system. This is the fish that defines the commercial and recreational fishery of the West Coast in these modern times of dams, water diversion, and almost perennial drought. Expecting close to 500,000 returning fish in 2007, the California Department of Fishand Game counted 90,000 returning Chinook, and the Pacific Fishery Management Council declared it to be a distressed fishery.