The great salmon fishing this season is not an accident.


by John McManus
8-16-2022
Website

Even in the middle of a drought, we’re seeing good fishing.   Survival of hatchery fish is much higher than it’s ever been.  This is in large measure because of the work of the Golden State Salmon Association which has pushed state hatchery managers to move the releases of these fish into friendlier waters near the GG Bridge.  Help us do more of this. 

GSSA has demonstrated that baby salmon released near the GG survive at two to four times higher than those released at the traditional state release site in Vallejo.  

In both 2021 and 2022, when authorities resisted increasing releases at Ft. Baker in Sausalito (one of the best release sites), it was GSSA that used its connections with Congress to get releases doubled there the last two years in a row.  This is already paying off big time in the ocean with more good fishing to come.  

GSSA also works to improve the river habitat needed by natural spawning salmon.  Help us make your fishing better by becoming a GSSA member.  It’s only $35.  If you’d like to support your fishery more, make a donation.  We promise to put it to good use.  If you know others that like to fish salmon, share this with them.  More members means more support for a strong salmon fishery. 

Go to the goldenstatesalmon.org to become a member.  You’ll catch more fish if you do.   

GGSA president John McManus is a long-time salmon fisherman and salmon advocate. He comes from a varied background that includes ten years of commercial salmon fishing in southeast Alaska, 15 years producing news for CNN and more recently, 11 years doing publicity and organizing for the public interest environmental law firm Earthjustice. Work at Earthjustice included organizing and publicity supporting restored salmon fisheries in the Columbia, Klamath and Sacramento rivers. 

A San Francisco native, Muni Pier and Lake Merced were the places where he first learned to tie a fishing line, bait a hook, and cast. He’s a long time member of the Coastside Fishing Club and keeps a boat part of the year in Half Moon Bay. 

From the 1970s on he spent a lot of time in the north coast salmon communities of Bodega Bay, Pt. Arena, Fort Bragg and Eureka. As salmon runs declined in the 1990’s, he got a front row seat to the demise of these communities, something that fuels his advocacy for salmon and salmon communities to this day. 

The Golden Gate Salmon Association is a coalition of salmon advocates that includes commercial and recreational salmon fisherman, businesses, restaurants, a native tribe, environmentalists, elected officials, families and communities that rely on salmon. 

GGSA’s mission is to restore California salmon for their economic, recreational, commercial, environmental, cultural and health values.

Currently, California’s salmon industry is valued at $1.4 billion in economic activity annually in a regular season and about half that much in economic activity and jobs again in Oregon. The industry employs tens of thousands of people from Santa Barbara to northern Oregon. This is a huge economic bloc made up of commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen (fresh and salt water), fish processors, marinas, coastal communities, equipment manufacturers, the hotel and food industry, tribes, and the salmon fishing industry at large.



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