June 2, 2025 — For the 14th year, the Coastside Fishing Club is releasing salmon smolt into the Pillar Point Harbor in efforts to boost the state’s beleaguered salmon population.
“We’ve seriously made a difference in the past,” Tom Mattusch, San Mateo County Harbor District commissioner and board member of the Coastside Fishing Club, said. “For a long time, our progress was one of the most successful. Now it’s being copied in other areas.”
Commercial salmon season in the state will be closed for a third year in a row in 2025, largely due to grim forecasts of Chinook salmon stock.
The idea behind the volunteer release efforts is both to increase the general salmon population and encourage salmon to return to the harbor once they have matured, ostensibly creating a new fishery at Pillar Point, Mattusch said.