California’s commercial salmon fishery is open for the first time in three years. David Toriumi owns a boat out of the Santa Cruz Harbor and spoke to KAZU while trying to get a long metal pole ready to go back onto his boat.
“ The weather was so rough out there that it actually ripped it off of my boat," he said.
Gale force winds and rough waves have forced boats to come in early in the day, but Toriumi says the catch has been about as expected.
”For the most part, I think everyone's kind of getting some fish.”
He’s been fishing the area for over 10 years and says salmon is especially important.
”Some of us, (it's) either 100% or, at least 50%, of their income for the year," he said.
Despite the recent closures, lots of people have stayed in the industry.
“ I'm so heavily invested in it, you know," he said. "We've got to work just like everybody else."
A few docks away, H&H Fresh Fish has locally caught salmon at the retail counter for the first time in three years. Co-owner Hans Haveman says the first few days of the season were uncertain.
“ The water was clear and clean—not a lot of feed in it for the first, like, week or two. And now it's definitely turned over and we get the dirtier, muddier water that's upwelling from the canyon. In that is all the nutrients, and then the nutrients is the bait, and then there's the fish," he said. "There seems to be a really nice body of fish out there.”
He says smaller boats are bringing in 15 to 20 fish a day, and bigger boats are catching their 160-salmon limit. The chinook salmon currently goes for over $30 a pound.
“ The price is kind of ridiculously high, because there's not a lot of fish and people are wanting it," said Haveman.
The season is scheduled through August but might close sooner if the total number of fish caught reaches the state’s harvest guidelines.
