Salmon

All Pacific salmon are anadromous, beginning life upstream, migrating to the ocean, then returning to their natal stream to spawn and die. King salmon, the largest of five Pacific salmon species, spawn in suitable rivers from the Sacramento - San Joaquin system northward.

California's commercial salmon fishery has endured since the mid-1800's. King salmon is the primary catch, although fishermen also occasionally land pink salmon. (Coho, or silver, salmon have been a prohibited catch for several years.) In its earliest days, the fishery operated in the lower Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, stimulated by the canning industry. The first salmon cannery on the Pacific coast began operating on the Sacramento River in 1864. Peaking in 1881-82, the industry later collapsed; the last cannery closed in 1919.

The ocean troll fishery began in the 1880's in Monterey Bay, the first trollers going to sea in small sailboats. Today's fishermen still use the basic techniques developed in the 1920's and '30's -- including powered gurdies and four to six main trolling lines. Today, entry to the fishery is limited. A fleet that numbered approximately 2,900 trollers in 1992 fish in a season that extends from May 1 through September 30, south of San Francisco. North of San Francisco Bay, the season is highly regulated to conserve Klamath River salmon stocks