Guide
Ocean fishing seasons, explained
Checked September 18, 2026 against CDFW’s ocean salmon regulations, its groundfish summary, its Pacific halibut page and Marine Management News.
The Fishing tile says one word — OPEN, CATCH & RELEASE, CLOSED or CHECK — for Chinook, coho, halibut and bottomfish in the ocean off the town you are looking at. The words are this board’s reading of CDFW’s rules. The rules are CDFW’s, and they can change with a day or two of notice.
The tile is not a licence to fish. It is a reading of a season table and the notices published since. Bag limits, size limits, gear and closed areas are none of its business, and a word can be right while the thing you are about to do is still illegal. Read the rule before you go.
Where CDFW draws the lines
CDFW manages the ocean in areas, and it names them differently for different fish. For groundfish there are five, north to south: the Northern, Mendocino, San Francisco, Central and Southern Management Areas, divided at 40°10′ (near Cape Mendocino), Point Arena, Pigeon Point and Point Conception. For salmon the areas are the Klamath Management Zone, the Fort Bragg and San Francisco areas, and the water from Pigeon Point to Mexico. The two sets share their northern lines, and on the north coast two of them matter. The first is 40°10′ north latitude — a line of latitude out on the Lost Coast, south of Petrolia and north of Shelter Cove. The second is Point Arena, at 38°57.5′, which is a headland rather than a parallel, and it catches people out: the town of Point Arena sits three and a half miles south of the point it is named for, so the town and Gualala fish the area below the line, not the one their county mostly sits in.
The convenient thing, and it is genuinely convenient, is that CDFW draws that same line for two different fisheries:
| Fishery | North of 40°10′ | 40°10′ to Point Arena | South of Point Arena |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salmon | Klamath Management Zone | Fort Bragg Management Area | San Francisco Management Area |
| Groundfish | Northern Management Area | Mendocino Management Area | San Francisco Management Area |
So every town from Fort Dick down to Petrolia reads the northern rules for everything, and Shelter Cove and the Mendocino coast down to Elk read the middle ones. That is not a detail: in 2026 the two fished different dates in August, and the bag limit on vermilion rockfish is four in the north and two south of the line.
Everything south of the headland reads the third column: Point Arena and Gualala, and then the whole Sonoma and Marin coast from Sea Ranch down to Muir Beach, and the San Mateo coast to Pescadero. The difference there is worth knowing before November. Pacific halibut closes north of Point Arena on November 15 and stays open south of it through December 31 — six more weeks, for every town on the south side of the line.
And for salmon only, a line at Point Reyes (38°02′). CDFW’s salmon rules cut the San Francisco area in two for the fall: in 2026 the fall season runs September 1 to October 31 from Point Reyes to Pigeon Point — Bolinas, Stinson Beach, Muir Beach and the whole San Mateo coast — and there is no fall season north of the point, so Olema and everything up to Point Arena stayed closed from August 24. The board reads each town’s side of the point from its latitude: Olema, at 38.04, is just above it. Groundfish and halibut do not split here.
A third line, at Pigeon Point (37°11′). South of it CDFW opens another area, and again names it differently for the two fisheries: the groundfish rules call it the Central Management Area (Pigeon Point to Point Conception), and the salmon rules call the water from Pigeon Point to the Mexican border “Monterey and South”. The board uses one name for it. Every town on the Santa Cruz board, Davenport to Watsonville, is inside it: Davenport sits eleven miles below the point. So is every town on the Monterey board, Moss Landing to Gorda — the area runs on past Point Sur and Point Piedras Blancas to Point Conception, so the whole Big Sur coast reads the same rows as the bay, and so do San Luis Obispo County and the Santa Barbara south coast, all the way to the border, for salmon. For groundfish there is a fourth line, at Point Conception (34°27′): CDFW’s Southern Management Area runs from there to Mexico, and because the line is a latitude, Gaviota (34°28′) reads the Central rows and Goleta, ten miles east along the same channel, reads the Southern ones, as does every town on the Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego boards, Avalon included, all the way to the border. In 2026 CDFW’s groundfish summary (updated June 23, 2026) has the Southern area closed January through March, open at all depths April through June, inshore of 50 fathoms July through September, and from October 1 nearshore rockfish, cabezon and greenlings closed while shelf and slope rockfish and lingcod are open seaward of 50 fathoms only — so the board reads that last stretch as check, not open. The salmon fall season is shorter — September only, where the Point Reyes to Pigeon Point subarea runs through October.
Which area each town fishes
| Area | Towns on this board |
|---|---|
| Klamath Management Zone | Fort Dick, Crescent City, Orick, Trinidad, McKinleyville, Arcata, Manila, Samoa, Eureka, King Salmon, Fields Landing, Loleta, Fortuna, Ferndale, Petrolia |
| Fort Bragg Management Area | Shelter Cove, Westport, Fort Bragg, Noyo Harbor, Mendocino, Little River, Albion, Elk |
| San Francisco Management Area | Point Arena, Gualala, Sea Ranch, Stewarts Point, Fort Ross, Jenner, Bodega Bay, Bodega, Valley Ford, Dillon Beach, Tomales, Marshall, Inverness, Point Reyes Station, Olema, Bolinas, Stinson Beach, Muir Beach, Pacifica, Montara, Moss Beach, Princeton-by-the-Sea, El Granada, Half Moon Bay, San Gregorio, Pescadero, Ocean Beach, Fort Funston, Sea Cliff, Presidio, Marina District, Fisherman’s Wharf, Embarcadero, Bayview-Hunters Point, Treasure Island, Richmond, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, Alameda, San Leandro, Rodeo, Crockett, Martinez, Vallejo, Benicia, San Rafael, Larkspur, Tiburon, Sausalito, South San Francisco, San Mateo, Foster City, Redwood City |
| Monterey Management Area | Davenport, Santa Cruz, Live Oak, Pleasure Point, Capitola, Soquel, Aptos, Seacliff, Rio Del Mar, La Selva Beach, Pajaro Dunes, Watsonville, Moss Landing, Castroville, Marina, Seaside, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Carmel Highlands, Big Sur, Lucia, Gorda, San Simeon, Cambria, Cayucos, Morro Bay, Los Osos, Avila Beach, Shell Beach, Pismo Beach, Grover Beach, Oceano, Gaviota |
| Southern Management Area | Goleta, Isla Vista, Santa Barbara, Montecito, Summerland, Carpinteria, Faria Beach, Ventura, Oxnard, Channel Islands Harbor, Port Hueneme, Zuma, Malibu, Topanga, Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Venice, Marina del Rey, Playa del Rey, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Palos Verdes, San Pedro, Long Beach, Avalon, Seal Beach, Sunset Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Corona del Mar, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, San Clemente, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar, La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach San Diego, Coronado, Imperial Beach |
The board works out which area a town is in from its latitude, and nothing else. At 40°10′ that is plainly safe: the line is a parallel, and no town near it fishes out of a bay whose mouth is on the other side. At Point Arena it is safe for a different reason — the boundary is a headland, but the regulation fixes it at a latitude too (38°57.5′), and it is that latitude the board uses. It is also why the town of Point Arena reads the southern area: its own latitude says so, whatever its name suggests.
What each word is worth
OPEN
A season CDFW adopted covers today, and no notice since has closed it. Where a quota can end a season early, the tile says or until the quota is caught beside the word — which is a real warning, not boilerplate. Both of the 2026 salmon seasons north of Point Arena ended on a quota, weeks before their printed dates.
CLOSED
A season row or a notice says so. CLOSED is earned exactly as hard as OPEN is: the board will not call something closed because it cannot find a rule.
CATCH & RELEASE
The salmon season is open, but this kind must be let go. You may fish; you may not keep it. It is not CLOSED, and the tile does not call it that.
CHECK
The honest answer when there are two answers, or none. You will see it when:
- No season is written for today. A new year nobody has read yet, or a stretch of the calendar CDFW never printed a date for. The board does not fill a gap with a guess.
- A notice could not be read in full. CDFW publishes its in-season changes as posts on Marine Management News, and the feed the board reads carries only an excerpt — which often stops in the middle of the rule. A notice the board cannot parse turns that species CHECK until a later one it can read replaces it, or until a person here reads the post and writes its dates down.
- A page that carries a season has changed since somebody here read it, or could not be read at all.
CHECK always names what to read and links to it. It is never a polite way of saying closed.
The first four, and what is peculiar about each
Chinook
The ocean salmon season is set in the spring for the whole coast and then cut down in season as the quota fills. In 2026 the Klamath zone opened June 13, ran to July 19, and had its August called off when its 3,900 Chinook were taken. Fort Bragg fished the same dates, got August 1 to 9, and lost the rest at 5,100. CDFW put it plainly on August 21: sport fishing for ocean salmon north of Point Arena had already concluded for the year.
Coho
Coho is not a season on this coast. It is a prohibition. The daily bag is “2 salmon of any species except coho (silver) salmon”, every day of the year, and so no coho is ever kept here. While a Chinook season is open the tile says CATCH & RELEASE for coho, because you will hook them and must let them go; the rest of the year it says CLOSED. If you cannot tell a coho from a Chinook in the water, that is the fish to leave alone.
Halibut
Pacific halibut opens April 1. North of Point Arena — the Klamath and Fort Bragg areas — it runs to November 15, one fish a day; south of it, through December 31. The catch is that CDFW does not announce halibut changes as dated notices the way it does salmon: the season lives on its Pacific halibut page, and whether the quota has already closed it is only ever on the hotline. The tile gives you both instead of pretending to know.
Bottomfish
Rockfish, cabezon, greenling and lingcod. North of Point Arena, the Northern and Mendocino areas run April 1 through December 31, all depths, and are shut January through March. South of the point each area has its own season and its own depth limits, and the tile reads the rows for the town’s own area.
The winter closure is a boat closure. “Closed — unlawful to possess in all waters” applies to fishing from a vessel. From shore, and for divers with spearfishing gear, most groundfish stay open year-round. A man on the jetty at Crescent City in February is not breaking the rule the tile is describing — which is why the closed word on this board says so in its own line rather than leaving you to find out.
Inside the ten-fish limit there are sub-limits that catch people out: one copper rockfish, two canary, no quillback at all, and vermilion four in the north but two from 40°10′ south. Lingcod is two fish at 22 inches.
The rest of the tile
Beyond those four the tile gives a word for five more, each read from CDFW’s own pages or from Title 14 (read September 27, 2026), and each links to its source:
| Fish | Where the word comes from | What changes it |
|---|---|---|
| Lingcod Rockfish Cabezon | CDFW’s groundfish summary, the same page as bottomfish, with the same boat-and-shore split. | When the page’s “Updated” date moves, all three turn CHECK with bottomfish until a person reads the change. |
| Surfperch | CDFW’s ocean sport fishing page for your area. Every area on these boards reads the same: open all year, with a limit for all surfperch together and one for shiner perch. | The season as adopted for the year. |
| Albacore & tuna | 14 CCR §28.38. | Regulation, changed by rulemaking, not in season. |
| Shrimp | CDFW’s invertebrate rules and 14 CCR §29.80 (the gear). | Regulation, changed by rulemaking, not in season. |
Pink, chum and sockeye have no row here: CDFW’s ocean salmon season is Chinook, and coho is always released. Smelt has none either: the section of Title 14 for the true smelts was not found, and the tile leaves a fish out rather than guess at it. A fish the tile does not list is not a fish that is closed. On January 1 the 2026 rows end and each word is CHECK until the new year’s rules are read.
Why the notices under the tile matter
Under the words the board prints CDFW’s own notices, dated and titled, with a link to each. Those are the agency’s words, not ours. When a word above and a notice below seem to disagree, the notice is the one that is right — it is the agency’s, it is dated, and it is newer than anything written here.
This is also the board’s weakest joint, and it is worth knowing where it is. CDFW’s feed gives an excerpt, not the rule. A notice that a person here has read in full is written into the season table with a link back to it, and the tile will then stand on that reading. A notice nobody has read yet turns the word CHECK. Both of those are deliberate, and the second one is the one that keeps you safe.
Who to ask
- CDFW Marine Region, for salmon: 707-576-3429.
- CDFW recreational Pacific halibut hotline, for whether the quota has closed the season: 831-649-2801.
- Marine Management News for the in-season changes as CDFW publishes them: cdfwmarine.wordpress.com.
Where this comes from
- CDFW ocean salmon sport regulations — wildlife.ca.gov ocean salmon
- CDFW ocean sport fishing groundfish regulations — wildlife.ca.gov groundfish
- CDFW Pacific halibut — wildlife.ca.gov pacific halibut
- CDFW Marine Management News — cdfwmarine.wordpress.com
- CDFW ocean sport fishing regulations, the whole booklet — wildlife.ca.gov ocean regulations