Monterey Bay Salmon & Trout Project

After much anguish and frustration for the past two years, our King Salmon net pens will finally be back in the Santa Cruz Harbor in April 2010. 120,000 Feather River King Salmon will be released into the Santa Cruz Harbor in early May 2010. There will be some changes this upcoming year. The second set of net pens will not be placed in the Moss Landing Harbor. In the past we were funded $7,500 annually by the Commercial Salmon Stamp Fund. Since they have not been fishing for over two years, they have no money to fund the Project this year. In addition, our hatchery is being included in a 5 year study about California hatchery salmon and their release areas, requiring that 25% of all of our fish be nosed tagged.

It will cost the hatchery $4,800.00 to nose tag the fish. The cost of putting the pens into the harbor with cranes, and feeding the fish will cost around $3,000.00. These costs will all be paid for by our hatchery. We can manage this for one year but we will need additional funding to continue this program in the future. We hope this study will help determine where released hatchery fish go and how good a harvest we have of these fish.

To help raise more money, we are bringing back our Big Fish Derby, assuming there will be a salmon season in 2010. We will probably start off a bit smaller than before. We intend on using the Santa Cruz and Capitola Harbors. Monterey might be included if the early season shows we have enough fish in our area. This is great news to MBSTP and our members, who have been waiting for us to get back in the water after two years of no fish and no fishing. Bayside Marine will be a sponsor of The Big Fish Derby this year. Todd Fraser, owner of Bayside Marine, has been a long time supporter of the Hatchery and we are happy to have him on board. Exact dates for the Derby have not yet been determined, but should fall around the July 4th weekend.

Check out our new web page (www.mbstp.org) for up to date information. At this time we are looking for volunteers to help with the net pens and the Derby. We are especially in need of donations and additional funding. If any of these projects interest you and you want to help restore King Salmon fishing to our area, please give Larry Wolf a call at 831-688-4257 or call the hatchery at 831-458-3095.