SALEM - State regulators threw the Oregon salmon fleet a lifeline on Friday, hoping to mitigate the impacts of a restricted commercial fishing season. But fishermen said the proposal falls short, offering at best a fraction of the normal salmon catch.
By opening up a series of "bubble fisheries" at 10 river mouths along the Oregon Coast, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will allow trollers to haul in chinook salmon caught as far as three miles from shore.
From three to 200 miles it is federally owned water, where drastic closures are in effect this season thanks to a low run of returning spawners to the Klamath River.
State fish and wildlife officials recommended that the seven-member commission open only the areas at the river mouths. The officials were wary of impacting the Klamath River returns that led to the original closures intended to prevent the catching of too many fish.
The commission's action added more options to a couple of bubble fisheries that are already open, making available an additional 12,000 chinook salmon to the fleet. Ron Boyce, the state's ocean salmon program manager, acknowledged that's not many fish compared with the hundreds of thousands that trollers could have caught in an open season.
"It's a Band-Aid," Boyce said.
Newport troller Kevin Bastien had a different word for the state's solution. "It's a joke," Bastien said. "We've already got bubble fisheries around two of the rivers that actually produced fall fishing, at Garibaldi and Bandon."
Bubble fisheries simply don't offer enough options, Bastien said, especially if it means paying more for fuel to travel to a distant river mouth, where other fishermen are sure to be crowding the water.
"I'm not going to move my boat from Newport to Brookings to maybe catch two or three fish a day," Bastien said. "If it was all state waters, that'd be a different thing. This is no bonus."
Winston Ross can be reached at (541) 902-9030 or rgcoast@oregonfast.net.