California king salmon caught in the Bay Area is usually available for at least a month before Memorial Day.
Not so this year: Because of concern about dwindling fish numbers in the northern part of the state, the season does not begin here until July.
But Bay Area residents can still get fresh salmon caught off the Central Coast, where the season opened earlier this month.
This wild-caught king salmon is currently for sale in certain Bay Area grocery stores for around $28 to $32 a pound, a similar price range to recent years, as well as from fishing boats, home delivery companies and farmers’ markets. Some sellers say it has been hard to find buyers, which could change over the holiday weekend that marks the beginning of summer.
Michael Mcgowen, left, and Joe Garofalo help unload salmon from Jason Salvato’s boat Willanina at Pier 45 in San Francisco on Wednesday.
Jessica Christian/The Chronicle“It’s a barbecue weekend. Families that are out and about are going to buy it if they can afford it,” said Max Boland, general manager for Safe Coast Seafoods on Pier 45. The wholesaler had to freeze 400 pounds or close to a third of the salmon it purchased in early May for lack of buyers.
Boland said that the price has stayed too high for many large supermarkets to carry it. A San Francisco location of Safeway contacted by The Chronicle isn’t carrying wild king salmon, while smaller grocers are, including Bi-Rite in San Francisco, Monterey Market in Berkeley, and Hook Fish Co. in Mill Valley and San Francisco. In addition, seafood home delivery companies like Water2Table, Sea Forager and Four Star Seafood have it.
Salmon fishing so far has only been only allowed from Pigeon Point (San Mateo County) south to protect stocks of wild salmon from Northern California’s Klamath River, which sometimes show up in the Bay Area or even farther south. At the same time, the number of adult Sacramento River fall-run king or chinook salmon, the type being caught now, is predicted to be about 45% higher than last year, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council.
The season on the Central Coast has also only been open for five or six days at a time, and there has been rough weather that’s made it harder to fish. (The fishing windows can be short to limit the quantity of fish being caught.)
Salmon fisherman arrive to unload their catches at Pier 45 in San Francisco on Wednesday. Fresh king salmon is coming in from coastal Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.
Jessica Christian/The Chronicle“There’s been a lot of wind,” said Vicki Crow, a fishmonger and former fisher who sells salmon from her boat, Beticia, in Moss Landing (Monterey County) with her cat Fishsticks. But being close to the source helps. “Some of the boats have done pretty good, and I got enough for the weekend.”
In the Bay Area, at least three fishing boats at Pillar Point Harbor were offering the fish on the FishLine app on Wednesday.
The next opportunity to fish in the same Central Coast region will start next week and run June 1-12. The San Francisco season, for the area between Pigeon Point to Point Arena (Mendocino County), will open July 8, with windows to fish lasting from four days to a month through September, with an additional short season from Point Reyes to Pacifica in October.
Joe Conte of Water2Table, a wholesale and home delivery company where salmon fillets are currently $32.60 a pound, advocates buying the fish in season to keep the local fishing fleet, which has struggled with the downturn in restaurant sales during the pandemic, in business.
“These guys have been waiting for years with COVID, and then they wait for this small window to fish,” he said. “Supporting them is super important. These boats will go away, and they won’t come back.”
Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @taraduggan
