BROOKINGS — After two mid-summers of idleness, Southern Oregon's recreational ocean anglers are poised for the busiest and perhaps the most productive summers on the sea.

Record numbers of young chinook salmon finning offshore should lead to a summer recreational salmon season that actually has some summer days in it for anglers fishing off the Southern Oregon and Northern California coasts.

Federal fishery managers have forged a series of options for setting the recreational summer seasons. And for the first time since 2004, the options include substantive fishing in July and August off Brookings and Gold Beach, instead of front-loading fishing days in May and June.

After just four days of July fishing last year and zilch in August, this year's season could go uninterrupted from pre-Memorial Day through the start of the next school year.

How big is that? It's the equivalent of Lake Tahoe ski-lift tickets in January instead of June.

Advertisement

"The chinook really don't start showing up here until July and August, so July and August really are our fishing seasons," says Jim Welter, a sport-fishing advocate in Brookings, the port-of-choice for Rogue Valley anglers who venture to sea.

"It should be outstanding," Welter says.

Just how outstanding the opportunities will be shall be flushed out April 2-6 in Seattle when the Pacific Fishery Management Council debates and adopts the sport and commercial seasons.

Of the three options on the table, two call for uninterrupted recreational fishing while the third — the most conservative option — calls for a short chinook closure from July 5-15.

"Remember, those are just options, a starting point for the next level of discussions," says Eric Schindler, an ocean-salmon fisheries biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in Newport. "But my impression is that July (fishing days) is something that's going to be there. Same with August."

In fact, Welter's guess — and it's probably a good guess, since he represents Oregon sports interests on PFMC salmon issues — is a chinook season that opens May 19 and runs through Sept. 4, with a two-chinook daily limit and no mid-week closures.

Also, the Southern Oregon ports again will partake in the fin-clipped coho salmon fishery that should open June 23 and run through Sept. 16, with a Oregon coast-wide quota of somewhere between 40,000 to 50,000 hatchery coho.

That's more than twice the 20,000-fish quota from last year's hatchery coho season.

Collectively, that means the Brookings salmon season of the good-ol' days — every summer holiday available for Rogue Valley residents to go cool off and troll the coast for salmon.

Finally, the weather report — not the calendar — will determine which days to fish.

Already, Rogue Valley anglers are taking note. In one day last week, the Port of Brookings/Harbor logged $14,000 in slip-rental receipts. That means anglers are planning to trailer their boats to Brookings early, and coming to fish often.

"Having their boats here encourages people to come over every weekend, not just once or twice," says Mike Ramsay, owner of Sporthaven Marina, the hub of fishing activity at the mouth of the Chetco River. "That's real encouraging for everybody."

When crafting seasons off Southern Oregon and Northern California, the PFMC puts heavy weight on estimates of the Klamath's wild 3-year-old chinook because the majority of Klamath chinook mature at age 3 and head up-river at 12-15 pounds apiece.

Federal law demands that 35,000 salmon escape all angling to spawn in the Klamath Basin each fall, and the 3-year-olds dominate that "escapement."

Last year, the numbers of 3-year-old fish in the ocean were extremely low, most likely the result of poor ocean conditions in 2003. But the numbers of immature 2-year-old Klamath chinook were astronomical, likely due to a 180-degree turn-around in ocean conditions in 2004, when those chinook went to sea.

Last year's 2-year-olds are this year's 3-year-olds, and computer modeling estimates that more than a half-million 3-year-old Klamath chinook are now in the ocean.

That allows for a very liberal season without threatening the spawning return to the Klamath.

"All those 3-year-olds took a lot of the pain out of the picture," Schindler says. "We hope the model is accurate," Schindler says. "If it is, the spawning escapement will be met without any problem at all."

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com.