As fishing season approaches with an April 1st start date for us, we are very busy getting both boats ready to start fishing out of SF bay and Bodega Bay. There are a few big and small changes to the new regulations for 2025, but Salmon remains as the big question, and at best it doesn’t look great.

Salmon

From the PFMC

“California’s ocean recreational fishing alternatives offer limited opportunities in all management areas under two of the three proposed options with small openers of a few to several days separated by closed periods. The third option proposes a coastwide closure. The first two alternatives would allow limited fishing opportunities in June, July, and August. Additionally, one of these alternatives includes limited fishing opportunities in September from Point Reyes to Point Sur, and in October from Point Reyes to Pigeon Point. Harvest guidelines to put a limit on total harvest will be implemented, and in-season actions may be taken to enforce closures if necessary to keep the fishery within preseason harvest projections.”

On the federal level they are really trying to get creative to give us a short season and something to fish for, even if its just scraps of a season. I fully expect CDFW to come back and say Alt 1 and 2 are “unenforceable” which seems to be a very common phrase these days in CDFW meetings. My guess is that we will get option 3, as I was optimistic last year and the state shot that down quickly, so I’m expecting the same result for this year. There’s always hope for a short season though as there are a lot of Salmon returning to the rivers, just not the right ones to count toward the model that gives us a season. So fingers crossed for 2026, but until we see some big changes in water management, or the abundance algorithm, I don’t expect to see big changes to our salmon season.

Rock Fish and Cordell Banks

On a more positive note, a good section of 300′ and deeper of Cordell Banks has been passed by the council to be opened. This is great news and will give us a about 35 square miles of premium lingcod and rockfish fishing for April, October and December. The not so great news is that we have zero clue on when it will get finalized in writing and we will be able to actually start fishing there. It could be next week, or hopefully by October, or at worst case by April 2026 which is all possible and we currently have been told nothing by the NMFS who write the laws we must follow. So Cordell is off the list, until we have something official in writing but its going to happen eventually. Not much else has changed for the rock cod from the 2024 season.

Tuna

We can officially use harpoons to land big bluefin and bigeye tuna now, So your going to see some shiny new darts on our boats and our deckhands are going to start practicing how to use them after we lost a few fish at the rail last year from pulled hooks. Not super exciting but it will make things a little easier for us to land those big fish. We are also working on changing our dock situation up in Fort Bragg and will likely keep the Bigeye up there at the dock for a good chunk of august and September to chase tuna instead of commuting back and fourth like previous years. We just opened tuna for booking and spots are already booking, so If you want to get on those trips I recommend doing it ASAP as they tend to fill up fast. We are looking forward to another exciting year and will be posting reports regularly as we begin fishing in the bay and offshore in April!