SALMON OPENER IS SMASHING.

Byline: Brett Pauly Daily News Staff Writer

Landing operators are calling it the best Southern California salmon opener in years, better, even, than the miraculous season of 1995.

On Saturday, more than a third of the salmon anglers aboard sport-fishing charters from Port Hueneme to Santa Barbara returned to port with a chinook in their gunnysacks. Among Sunday's seagoers, well over half landed one of the silvery king salmon. By Monday, two-thirds struck aquatic paydirt.

``I'd call it very good, if not excellent, for Southern California,'' said Eric Huff of Eric's Tackle Shop in Ventura. ``This is not a salmon area. The region south of Point Conception is not known for having productive salmon openers.''

Such was the case during the 1996 opening weekend, when only a handful of legal-size salmon were caught by the entire Ventura County sport-fishing fleet.

``Last year's opening day was terrible, just a terrible way to begin after '95,'' said Amalie Abbott, co-owner of Ventura's Harbor Village Sportfishing.

Of course, 1995 was a tough act to follow. Nearly 200,000 salmon - more than five times the previous season high over the past 20 years - were caught by sport-fishing vessels that year. But even the salmon opener two years ago was lame. In fact, it was nonexistent.

``We're way ahead of 1995,'' said Steve Fleischer of Port Hueneme Sportfishing. ``We didn't catch our first salmon until April of that year. There were fish out there, but we didn't start targeting them until we knew what was happening.''

Slow salmon openers have been common in recent years, which is why landing operators in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties were so elated when Saturday's radio chatter between the fleets reported outstanding salmon catches.

``Last year, we caught 26 salmon all season,'' said John Yoon, owner of Ventura Sportfishing. ``This year we doubled it in one weekend.''

On Saturday, five landings had 15 charter boats targeting salmon, and 137 were netted by 360 anglers. Sunday's yield for 13 charters out of six landings was 165 salmon for 294 anglers. Monday, 158 passengers on 14 boats out of the six landings nailed 106 salmon. Most boats were drifting or anchoring and customers were fly-lining anchovies and sardines with lightweight sliding sinkers.

There would have been more kings caught had anglers adjusted their tackle, said Bruce Williams, landing operator at Port Hueneme Sportfishing.

``We seem to have forgotten the lessons we learned two years ago,'' he said.

``Don't hammer down your drag. Keep a real soft drag, just barely enough to take some of the line. Don't marlin-set the hook or you'll pull it right out of their soft gums. And be sure to take the reel out of gear when the net goes into the water. That way if the fish spooks it can run out in free spool and not snap off the line.''

Among the hundreds of private boats, there were numerous reports of limits and half-limits of salmon. The limit is two fish per angler per day.

It's always difficult to measure the yield among private boaters, but Huff estimated the weekend's haul might have exceeded 1,000 chinook. Most anglers aboard private vessels troll for salmon using various lures or bait with flashers and more sophisticated sinkers or downriggers.

The salmon season cntinues through late September, a month longer than the 1996 season.

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Photo

Photo: Tom Van Voy of Thousand Oaks fly-lined anchovies to catch his limit of king salmon - a 13- and 16-1/2-pounder - Monday aboard the Explorer out of Ventura.

Brett Pauly / Daily News