MOSS LANDING — It was slim pickings in May for hundreds of commercial salmon fishermen who are bracing for even harder times now that the season has temporarily closed and won't resume until late July.
Ken Klinger, a commercial salmon fishermen for five decades, said there were times out on the open water these past four weeks where he was lucky if he caught more than half-dozen salmon a day.
Hoping to land the limit of 75 per week, Klinger now fears he won't have enough money to pay the thousands of dollars it costs to dock his three boats at Moss Landing Harbor and maintain his fleet in the post-season in September.
"In a good season, I'd have no problem," Klinger said as he stood aboard his 27-foot cruiser. "But this is not a good season. And what's worse is that there could be a ton of salmon in the waters tomorrow, but we're not going to get to fish them."
And so the lament continues among the Central Coast commercial salmon fishermen whose livelihoods will suffer in the wake of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's temporary closures on Wednesday.
Designed to protect the endangered fall chinook in the Klamath River in Northern California, the restrictions — the likes of which haven't been seen in decades — couldn't have taken place at a more inopportune time: the height of the salmon season between mid-June and mid-July.
"It's good for the Klamath River but it's crummy in the greater scheme of things," said Tim Broadman, an enforcement agent for NOAA in Arcata, a Northern California town not too far from where the Klamath River flows into the Pacific Ocean. "We realize the fishermen are having hard times, and we feel for them, but we also have to protect the chinook."
A retired firefighter from Monterey County, Klinger is one of the lucky ones. He's got a pension coming in, but some of his fellow fishermen don't, and he feels for them.
And he's heard from them.
But the fishermen had their chance, roughly four weeks worth, according to Klinger. And now it's gone, and it was a dismal stretch all the same.
The numbers don't lie: Only 5,600 salmon were caught in a two-week period between Point Sur and Pigeon Point, according to NOAA's Broadman.
Usually, the number is four times that in the first two weeks of May, he said.
While NOAA is at a loss to explain why there were so few fish caught, the federal agency stands by its stance that the prohibitions will increase the number of chinook that return to the Klamath River to spawn, which in turn, will preserve the species as a whole.
That means you can expect more king salmon on your plate at local restaurants, but between now and then, expect a shortage and high prices.
As for Klinger, he's predicting boat seizures at the harbor and auctions for those unable to afford slip fees. However, Linda McIntyre, Moss Landing harbormaster, insists special payments will be arranged if fishermen properly notify the district ahead of time.
"We're hoping the season will turn around and everybody will end up being happy," she said.
Meanwhile, Dino Stagnaro of Stagnaro Fishing Trips/Bay Cruises at the Santa Cruz harbor has seen an increase in his whale-watching customers since the two-limit per person restrictions on the recreational side of salmon fishing started coming down the pike in late March.
"We decided to stay open later and we started advertising," he said. "When the fishing is slow and when the limit is small, whale watching always becomes a big deal.
"It may be best known in Monterey, but Santa Cruz has some good stuff. We saw some killer whales out there the other day."
Contact Tom Ragan at tragan@santacruzsentinel.com.
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Source: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/June/02/