Tag Archives: Salmon fishermen
Balance The Pain Of Drought On Farmers And Fishermen Equitably
In the first week of May a young salmon boat captain struggled to keep his boat stable and fishing while getting bashed by an unruly spring wind storm near the San Mateo-Santa Cruz county line. Far offshore, where the continental shelf drops off and a huge volume of marine nutrients circulate from the ocean bottom to the surface, salmon gathered. So did borderline gale force winds on top of a 10-foot swell. It looked like the scene at the end of the movie, “The Perfect Storm.” You’re risking life and limb fishing in those conditions, and you wouldn’t in more normal times. But these aren’t normal times. >click to read< 11:08
Salmon fishermen in Oregon to face brief closure that could help them later in the year
The commercial salmon season started just two weeks ago, but Tuesday is your last day to fish until the season opens up again May 26th. The executive director of the Oregon Salmon Commission says the season normally sees closures but at a different time. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, fishermen are catching Chinoock salmon but having a hard time selling them. That was behind the push to change the closure time from Cape Falcon south to the California border for this season. “Were basically closed for the markets in May,” said Nancy Fitzpatrick, the executive director of the Oregon Salmon Commission. “But it gave us more open days in July and August when we might typically be closed.” >click to read< 08:54
Gas engines saved the lives of salmon fishermen
Between 1908 and 1911, something happened that almost certainly saved hundreds of men from drowning on the Columbia River Bar. The salmon canneries in Astoria started fitting their gillnet fishing fleets with small gasoline engines. At the time, the mainstay of the Astoria gill-net fishing fleet was a picturesque double-ended lapstrake design, developed by a California man named J.J. Griffin in 1866 for use on the Sacramento River. They were 24 to 30 feet long, 7 to 8 feet wide, sloop-rigged with broad gaff-rigged sails on a relatively short mast. This design quickly caught on and became very famous and popular on river fisheries all up and down the West Coast. >click to read< 11:27
‘They’re flat broke’: Salmon fishermen demand disaster relief for failed season
The Pacific Salmon Commission is forecasting a total return of only 447,000 sockeye salmon to the Fraser, one of the world’s richest salmon rivers, this year. “This is the lowest run size ever estimated since estimates began in 1893, and lower than the previous record for lowest run size of 858,000 observed in 2016,” its report read.,, “Many of them are in debt because they got the boat and gear ready for the season and they [invested] quite heavily in doing that. And then they put fuel in their boats and went to the fishing grounds and then caught nothing.” >click to read< 15:24
Jerry Brown sends a message to water agencies on the Delta tunnels – and it’s direct
Jerry Brown took an Old English turn from his Latin wisdom in 2012 by declaring: “I want to get s— done,” a reference to his vision for building two tunnels 30 miles long to move Sacramento River water south from the Delta to the rest of the state. And in 2015, addressing California water agencies, he offered pithy advice to naysayers: “Until you put a million hours into it, shut up.” Critics of the $15 billion project were greatly offended. “Two 40-foot diameter tunnels that can take the entirety of the Sacramento River at most times of the year of just seems like a bad idea to salmon fishermen,” said John McManus, executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association. “Rank-and-file salmon fishermen don’t trust them when they say, ‘Trust us.’ ”
There’s an element of hypocrisy on the part of Bay Area environmentalists, who drink water piped from Hetch Hetchy. Delta interests have all the water they could possibly want. But the fishing industry has a real beef. Dams deplete salmon runs. click here to read the story 10:45
Battle Over Alaska’s Bristol Bay Pits Salmon Against Gold
Commercial fisherman, native Alaskans and environmentalist in Bristol Bay have banded together to fight the building of the mine. Bristol Bay provides 40% of America’s wild caught seafood and $2 billion dollars in commercial fishing. It’s also the single greatest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. Right now, much of the land is protected by either the federal or state governments, but not the one piece where the potential mine would sit. Read the rest here 09:44
Both sides in Scotland’s escalating seal-shooting wars could face charges after a series of dramatic confrontations
For the second year running, 
is running a summer-long campaign to defend seals in northeast Scotland. It has mobilised three boats and around 80 volunteers from 12 countries who have been monitoring and filming the shooters, sometimes putting themselves in front of seals. They say they have filmed three seals being legally shot in Gamrie Bay, and believe a fourth was also shot there. In Murkle Bay, they say they filmed two seals being legally shot, and believe a further two were shot off camera. Read the rest here 12:42
Off-the-boat sales strong: Salmon fishermen drawing seafood lovers to Half Moon Bay
Three-and-a-half weeks ago, Jim Anderson, commercial salmon and crab fisherman and captain of the Allaine, said the fish hadn’t bitten that good since 2005. Between 200,000 to 300,000 pounds of fish were caught that week from the Farallon Islands in San Francisco down to Pigeon Point south of Pescadero, Anderson said. continued@dailyjournal
