If you're looking for troll-caught kings, pickings will be slim along the Lower 48 West Coast for the next couple of months. The severely restricted season will send fishermen north to Alaska and as far south as Southern California as well as to the courtroom in search of relief. Once July rolls around, most of the waters of Oregon and California will be off limits to trailers. Even this month is a bit short, with only the northern half of Oregon open. In July and August, the Pacific will be free oftrollers from Cape Falcon, Oregon, to Point Arena, California. The only open troll fisheries will be off Washington and the very tip of Oregon and Southern California to the Mexican border for those two all-important salmon marketing months. Even now, troll kings are hard to come by because of the weather. That could improve, but demand for the salmon is surprisingly light. The troll salmon move to end-users, but it takes longer than expected to get rid of a load. One marketer took a delivery on Wednesday, expecting to have the fish moved out for week-end trade, but they didn't sell out until Monday. And the fish aren't cheap because the supply is down. California buyers were paying trollers as much as 4 dollar/lb. for Oregon kings a week ago, though amore common price coastwide was 3.50 dollar/lb. This put fish into California for around 4.75 dollar/lb. before even leaving the dealers. The fish were expensive, though there wasn't much to be done about it if you needed fish. A goodly portion of the fish were mediums as well, making the price that much harder to take. Washington trollers were out June 3-6 and landed about 3,000 kings, more than expected. Buyers paid 3-3.50 dollar/lb. This left about 1,800 kings to go in the quota, not enough for a full-fledged opening. They will be saved for the June 27-30 opening when trollers will have a 30-fish cap to serve the local July 4 demand. Washington tribal trollers have been out since May 1 but have been concentrating on black cod and halibut. Now theyare starting on their 8,000-king allotment. The Washington kings are on the small side, averaging 10 pounds each, down from the 13-pound average. Long-term, the 10-pound size is a return to normal.
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