Salmon Season has officially been announced. We are looking at a pretty good season with just shy of 35k fish quota for SF zone. Plus some big things on the rockfish front happening.

Salmon

From the PFMC

We won some battles and lost some for the Bodega Fleet. I was frequently on the phone with different representatives to move the September Point Reyes line to Bodega Head, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen. For now, I will avoid discussing the politics in this report, as it’s complicated and involves issues with the Klamath fish affecting our Bodega boats.

You will see that we have a quota of 34.9k fish for the SF management zone, which under a normal year gets us about 100 to 150 days of fishing. I imagine everyone is going to fish hard this year, so it will likely be closer to 30 to 50 days on the water depending on the weather and fishing, assuming we double our average in either catching or trying.

For those saying “but we got 3.5k per day last year and that will happen this year,” maybe it will happen again, especially over the 4th of July weekend, and a huge chunk of the quota will get knocked out that weekend. But overall for the season, we would have to have 700% of our normal catch rate over the past 10 years that we had a real season, so mathematically speaking, it’s pretty unlikely we see over 1k fish landed per day on average for a month straight for just the SF zone alone. I’m guessing more like 300 to 500 per day average, as people often have to work on weekdays, so catching and overall effort will be a little more spread out than last year. Regardless, we are looking at a pretty good season; for those looking for charters, I recommend booking early in the season. Mid-July dates are running out for a good reason; that’s typically our best fishing.

Rock Fish and Cordell Banks

Cordell is in the final stages of being opened. When is this happening? I have no clue, but I was told a few months ago that it would be a few months, so hopefully this summer and most likely before 2027.

Also big things happening in 2027.

First, all rockfish species are officially “recovered” across the West Coast, which is amazing news. I did a little digging after hearing that on the PFMC, GMT, and CDFW reports for the 2027-2028 groundfish.

The state is offering us massive deregulation and “all-depth” access which we already had on emergency basis, but the trade-off is strict in-season tracking.

Here is exactly what is on the table for 2027.

Yelloweye and the California stock of Quillback are officially rebuilt. The Council is completely erasing their rebuilding plans from the rulebook. Because of this, they are also recommending getting rid of the Yelloweye Rockfish Conservation Areas (YRCAs) off the coast entirely. We don’t have many YRCA areas in CA, but Oregon guys will get some area opened for them.

Right now, the Rockfish, Cabezon, and Greenling (RCG) complex is all one thing—if rockfish shuts down or gets depth-restricted, the others do too. The new proposal splits them up. You will be able to fish for Cabezon and Kelp Greenling year-round at all depths, and each will get its own 10-fish bag limit. The standard 10-fish aggregate bag will then apply only to rockfish.

COWCOD AND YELLOWEYE ARE PROPOSED TO OPEN FOR TAKE
Because the stocks are rebuilt, the state is proposing a 1-fish sub-bag limit for both Yelloweye and Cowcod. We only get to keep them for one month out of the year. The fleet reps want it in December, but CDFW is pushing to put it in April so we have early-season access. I’m tempted to reach out and push for April, keep our crab combos separate, and avoid the crab hoop mess. I’d rather focus on giant Cowcod and Yelloweyes in April, but at the same time, December can be good weather-wise some years. There are some epic areas around for Cowcod, and we all know about Yelloweye in the deeper water. I’ve seen several cows over 36″, easily above 25 lbs, literal giants I avoid like the plague as they often require 15+ lbs to descend. Taking a few a year would be awesome, and they put up a hell of a fight. Pair that with the opening of Cordell, and we are looking at some insane bottom fishing days.

The Catch: New Soft Caps like Oregon with potentially a rear-round season, which is a more effective way of managing fisheries in my opinion. CDFW is setting up new “Annual Catch Targets” (ACTs) for Vermilion, Lingcod, and Quillback. If the fleet burns through these targets/quotas too fast, CDFW will step in mid-season and either slash our bag limits or throw the depth restrictions right back on us, ideally dropping the limit for a certain species slowly like Oregon.

Overall, this is really good news, and I feel like it got buried with the craziness of Salmon. We are looking at some amazing fishing in the couple of years to come after a few very rough years.

Tuna

The “Mega El Niño” forecasted things could get interesting if the wind lets us fish this year; folks are comparing it to 2015, which was the crazy seabass year for us. The 3-day boats are already seeing yellowfin, dorado, and some excellent summertime fishing, but it’s only April, so those fish have a lot of time to keep pushing north into our grounds. We could see major bluefin, maybe some dorado, yellowtail, and marlin, and hopefully a lot more bigeyes this summer and fall like 2023 had. The wind will be the final decision maker, but a mild summer wind-wise will open the dates for an absolutely crazy fall.