Business has picked up at the harbor in the past few days as hundreds of sports fishermen get ready for the salmon season opener Saturday.
But there's one heck of a caveat: Nobody knows whether the season will last three weeks, a couple months or through September.
The threat of a short season on what essentially is a multimillion dollar industry is the result of a dwindling salmon population in the Klamath River, which starts in southeastern Oregon and empties in Northern California.
It's an issue that has pitted fishermen against environmentalists in a scenario that's reminiscent of the sort of feud carried out between the timber industry and those who want to protect the spotted owl in Northern California.
The decision, which will affect a multimillion dollar recreational industry, will be made next week in Sacramento by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, an advisory committee that makes recommendations to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
And what NOAA decides the state's Department of Fish and Game usually follows, according to Steve Martarano, a spokesman with the state Department of Fish and Game, whose commission will set regulations for recreational fishing on April 11.
On March 10, the Pacific council closed off all federal waters to commercial salmon fishermen, whose season traditionally gets under way May 1.
The move was made to protect the fall chinook, which haven't been returning to the Klamath River to spawn in the sorts of numbers that they used to in the past three years.
The cause of fewer salmon is obvious: low water flows in the river, but the reasons vary.
Some say potato farmers upstream in Oregon are draining the river of too much water.
Others say the timber industry is polluting it and getting in the way of healthy spawning.
And a few say it's simply the yin and yang of fish populations, and that fishermen are over-harvesting.
Whatever the reason, the uncertainty of the salmon fishing season has done little to dampen the enthusiasm of fishing aficionados, who were out in full force in Santa Cruz on Thursday.
They were buying bait, investing in equipment, even making sure all their electronics are in order before they launch — long season or short season.
"The calls are coming in," said Lance Edwards, an electrician for Johnson Hicks Electronics at the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor. "People want to make sure that when they get in and turn the key, that they've got their radar working, that fish finders are working, that their radios are working."
In a worst-case scenario, recreational salmon fishermen would have until April 21 to catch two fish per day — the number of salmon they are entitled to, says Martarano.
In the best case scenario, the fishermen will have the entire season.
"It's all up in the air," says Mike Schell of the Bay Side Marine in Santa Cruz. "It's definitely a wait and see situation."
And Greg Hill, an avid fisherman, doesn't like the unpredictably all that much.
"These guys, they're nothing but tree huggers and otter scrubbers," said Hill, who's been fishing salmon since he was a kid and adds that he fails to understand how a distant river such as the Klamath can dictate where he can fish in the Monterey Bay. Environmentalists counter that the dwindling population of the fall chinook is important and that some restrictions must be imposed.
"If the stock isn't health for future generations, there will be nothing to fish anyway," said Martarano.
Contact Tom Ragan at tragan@santacruzsentinel.com.