Disappearing Salmon Prompts Restrictions : Fishing: Officials shorten Northern California sports and commercial seasons.

With California’s once-abundant salmon fishery facing potential collapse, state fish and game officials have joined the federal government in imposing extraordinary restrictions on sport and commercial salmon harvesting along the North Coast.

In a move expected to have severe economic repercussions for California’s $4-billion recreational fishing industry, the State Fish and Game Commission has voted unanimously to curtail ocean sport salmon fishing from water’s edge to three miles offshore. At the same time, Department Director Boyd Gibbons has taken similar administrative action to limit commercial fishing in the same area.

Both decisions mirrored action by the Pacific Fishery Management Council earlier this month to impose unprecedented restrictions for the 1992 season on commercial and sports salmon fishing along the entire coasts of California, Oregon and Washington. The federal action, which still must endorsed by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Barbara Hackman Franklin, affects fishing from three miles to 200 miles offshore.

“This salmon season will probably be the last for a number of people in the industry,” said John Beuttler, executive director of United Anglers of California. “We will probably see the ripple effect of this all the way down to Ventura.”

But of most concern to fishermen, Beuttler said, are the conditions in the fishery that made the action necessary.

“At this point I hope California is getting the message that one of its treasures is becoming extinct,” Beuttler said.

The new fishing restrictions were recommended by state regulators after marine biologists reported alarming declines in the salmon population brought on by six years of drought, water diversions from the rivers of Northern California and “less than optimum survival conditions” in the Pacific Ocean.

Of particular worry to both federal and state officials were conditions in the Klamath River, where Chinook salmon come to spawn in the early fall. Officials said at a minimum 35,000 fish need to spawn this fall so future production is adequate.

Even with fishing being curtailed, Fish and Game marine biologist Alan Baracco said projections now are that only 27,000 salmon will return to the river to lay eggs.

For an area stretching roughly from San Francisco Bay to the Mexican border, salmon fishing regulations this year will be nearly the same as last year. The season will run from Feb. 29 to Nov. 1, and fisherman will have a salmon bag limit of two per day. However, Beuttler predicted conditions in the fishery make it likely that Southern California anglers will find few fish to catch.

In contrast, in Northern California from Humboldt Bay to the Oregon border, salmon fishing season will not start until July 6 and will end Sept. 7. Even worse news for the weekend angler, salmon fishing will be allowed only Monday through Wednesday of each week, and the day bag limit will be one fish. In normal years, the fishing season for this area would have run from Memorial Day through Labor Day, with seven-day-a-week fishing and a two-fish-per-day bag limit.

From San Francisco Bay north through Shelter Cove, the season will run the same as the Southern California season--February through Nov. 1--but for a 29-day period in mid-summer no salmon fishing will be allowed at all. The fishing ban will extend from June 1-29.