Salmon Gone, Fishermen Try to Adapt on a Changing Coast
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
CHARLESTON, Ore. — So long, salmon. Steve Wilson is refitting his 51-foot troller to fish for the future. No longer will he cast for the conflicted symbol of Northwest abundance and bitterness. No more fishing for a myth.
His new pursuit?

“Prawns,” said Mr. Wilson, nearly bursting out laughing because, here in Salmon Nation, he could not quite believe things had come to this. “It’s what you call a ‘developmental fishery.’ We don’t know if we’ll make any money in it, but we figured we could either go broke sitting still or we could go broke working.”

With most of Oregon and California’s commercial salmon fishery shut down because of sharp declines in the number of the fish returning to the Sacramento River to spawn, Mr. Wilson and many other fishermen are looking for almost any alternative, trying to diversify along with the rest of the regional economy. In some cases, they are investing money they received from the federal government because of a partial shutdown of salmon fishing in 2006.

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