Tag Archives: Bay Area

Powerful winter storm pummels the Golden State

Millions of Southern Californians are waking up to a powerful storm that’s expected to linger over the region through Monday, bringing risks of dangerous flooding, road closures, power outages and other hazards. The slow-moving atmospheric river made its way into Southern California on Sunday afternoon after dousing the Bay Area and Central Coast earlier in the weekend. National Weather Service officials issued flash flood warnings for large swaths of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The warnings were set to expire at 12 a.m. Monday but could be extended. It wasn’t just SoCal; the atmospheric river brought heavy rain and strong winds across the Bay Area and Central Coast earlier Sunday. more, >>click to read<< 09:40

Wild salmon return to Bay Area markets

Local wild king salmon are back in Bay Area markets and restaurants after the commercial season reopened last week from Pigeon Point (near Half Moon Bay) south to the Mexico border. “The fleet just found a school of beautiful salmon,” San Francisco fisherwoman Sarah Bates said via a text from her boat, the Bounty. This current window of commercial salmon season is scheduled to last from June 19 to June 30. Bates said the fleet had to wait until about the third day of the opener to start fishing, once the school moved south of the Pigeon Point line with the movement of prevailing currents and feed. >click to read<19:43

Commercial salmon season finally arrives in the Bay Area

At Monterey Fish Market on Pier 33, one San Francisco fisherman alone brought in 300 pounds of salmon on Tuesday, the first day of the Bay Area commercial salmon season. That haul was, in co-owner Tom Worthington’s words, a good omen for the much-delayed start of the season. Yet it’s still too early to say what the rest of the season, which wraps up Sept. 30, will bring.,,, According to Larry Collins of the San Francisco Community Fishing Association, the larger fishing boats he works with report getting 20 to 50 medium-size fish a day. Most boats won’t come back for a few more days, so salmon probably won’t start showing up in the markets until the weekend. Those on the water reported calm seas and low winds. click here to read the story 08:23

Prepping for salmon: Truncated season a response to drought, conservation efforts

pillar point jim andersonInstead of a typical flurry of commercial fishermen prepping for the start of salmon season next weekend, the docks at Pillar Point Harbor have been relatively calm — despite regional indications there are bountiful populations of the drought-impacted fish. The length of commercial seasons are determined by the health of the fishery. This Bay Area season will run May 1 through Aug. 29, with nearly two weeks of blackout dates. Although the season could have potentially been longer based,,, Read the rest here 12:56

Commercial Crab Season Set to Get Cracking Saturday – The Crab look Primo, Baby!!

Cali crab seasonPast the tourist traps at Fisherman’s Wharf, the real fishermen of San Francisco are at work hoisting stacks of crab pots onto boats that line the pier. The commercial Dungeness crab season in California opens Saturday. Fishermen are still in negotiations with wholesalers about a price, but say they hope to settle on that by Friday. If they do, the will have fresh crab by the weekend. Read the rest here 11:56

Bay Area commercial salmon fishing season begins

Expectations for the season hover between optimism and pessimism. The Pacific Fishery Management Council, a regulatory body, estimates there are 634,700 adult salmon in the Pacific Ocean that were born in the Sacramento River system, which is lower than the estimates from 2010 to 2012 but much higher than the figures from 2006 to 2009, when the fishery collapsed. Read more here  08:38

Bay Area sea gull population explodes, bringing flocks of problems

“These sea gulls, they need some thinning,” said Gilroy retiree Bill Valiquette, a lifelong Bay Area resident who has seen gull problems dramatically worsen. “Just go around and collect the damn eggs and throw them in the garbage. There’s too damn many to shoot. You’d have to take 15 guys with double-barrel shotguns and go crazy.” Wildlife experts say government biologists can’t simply massacre thousands of gulls. The public outcry would be too great. continued@mercurynews