2012 Pacific Coast Salmon Season Shaping Up As A Bumper Year - SF Chronicle
The salmon will be jumping off the coast of California this summer and, for the first time in years, anglers will be allowed to snag them in large numbers for placement on dinner tables, fishery managers announced Wednesday.
There are more chinook salmon swimming in the ocean right now than anyone has seen since at least 2005, according to projections released by biologists during the annual weeklong industry fret-fest that decides how many salmon are available to be reeled in along the West Coast.
Nobody knows for sure why there is a revival, but experts have cited several possibilities, including a two-year ban on fishing that ended last year, improved ocean conditions, abundant precipitation in 2011 and limits on water diversions.
The king salmon bonanza prompted the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which advises the federal government on how to manage local fish populations, to outline a series of options for commercial fishermen that all provide ample sport and commercial fishing throughout the spring and summer.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/08/MN471NHHMF.DTL
