July 6, 2023 — On another day, Matt Juanes would have set out on the water long before sunrise.
But this still June morning, Juanes was taking his time. As dawn flickered across the sky, the San Francisco-based commercial fisher and his deckhand carefully checked their ropes and bait jars and the dozens of fishing pots piled at the back of Juanes’ boat. Juanes was hoping to get ahead of any issues they might encounter out at sea. Still, he was almost certain something would go wrong.
Juanes, an experienced salmon and crab fisher who has worked out of Fisherman’s Wharf for over five years, is no stranger to the trade. Today, though, he would be chasing an unfamiliar catch for the first time: coonstripe shrimp.
“This is all new to me,” Juanes, 46, said. “This is going to be a learning experience.”
Juanes is one of hundreds of commercial fishers who dock along the Golden State coast and who would normally be out hunting mighty chinook or “king” salmon — the mainstay of California’s commercial salmon fishing industry. The first months of summer are typically a premier time for both salmon and salmon fishers.
But this summer, California’s salmon fishing season is completely shut down for the first time in over a decade. Last year, only 62,000 adult fall chinook salmon returned to the rivers of the Sacramento Valley to spawn — the third-worst year on record, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. In April, the Pacific Fishery Management Council issued its response: Salmon fishing all along the California coast would be shut down (PDF) this year.
The decision, which fishery managers hope will give salmon time to recover, has left California’s commercial fishers scrambling to find alternate sources of income.