May 26, 2026 — Along the California coast, from Bodega Bay to Morro Bay, commercial fishing boats have started pulling in salmon for the first time in three years, and local salmon are once again appearing on restaurant menus and in seafood markets across the state.
California’s commercial ocean salmon fishery began reopening in May 2026 for the first time since a population crash led to a three-year closure.
But while the reopening, happening in phases and with limits, is welcome news, it does not mean the underlying problems have been solved.
The Pacific Fisheries Management Council, established by Congress to oversee West Coast fisheries, closed the salmon fishery in 2023 after populations of fall-run Chinook salmon collapsed to critically low levels, down 85% from the average population before 2005.
The immediate cause of the latest closure was the extreme drought from 2020-2022 that devastated salmon survival as river levels fell and the water heated up. But more than drought pushed the fishery to the brink. The underlying system of water management, hatchery practices and habitat loss have also eroded the salmon population’s ability to quickly recover from difficult years.