Two Chinook salmon are on ice and ready for display or filleting at Chuck’s Seafood today, in Charleston, as fish cutter Juan Ocampo filets albacore tuna in the background. The salmon were caught on the F/V Revelation, one of the first boats to deliver salmon. World Photo by Susan Chambers

CHARLESTON - Blame it on the weather - the northwest wind picked up in the afternoon.

Or the current. It was too strong.

Or the water temperature. Too cold.

Whatever.

The salmon aren't showing up, despite some commercial trollers' first efforts to find the fish on the opening day of salmon season, the first fishing day in more than a year off the South Coast.

It's not unusual, said troller and former Oregon State University Sea Grant Agent Paul Heikkila, while he was working on his boat, the Andante, in the inner basin.

“It's April, after all,” he said with a chuckle.

The commercial season usually opens March 15, but this year, it was postponed until April. Regardless, it's not unusual for the fish to remain elusive during the first couple months of the season. The late summer and early fall months are when the fish really start to show up.

Trollers are used to that. Some though, after a year of no income from salmon, were eager to get on the water.

Only a handful left Charleston to attempt to find some Chinook. Some started up their boats first thing in the morning and motored over the bar, others left later in the day, during the tide change. Many remained in port making last-minute preparations to fish another day - and letting the first boats that crossed the bar on Tuesday waste their high-priced diesel searching for the fish.

Jeff Reeves, standing in the gaffing hatch on his boat, was working on his wire while listening to the VHF radio.

“This water's too cold,” a disembodied voice said over the speaker. “It's not even 50 degrees. It's warmer up by Newport.”

Reports of only a fish or two caught on the first day filtered through the fleet as fishermen passed each other on the dock on the sunny afternoon.

What boat? What size were the fish? What was the water temp? Where were they caught, did you hear?

Two salmon were delivered to Chuck's Seafood late in the day, manager Heath Hampel said. Together, they weighed 27.5 pounds.

Not bad sizes for the opening day, but not large compared with some of the whoppers caught in 2004 and 2005.

Other seafood buyers expected more boats to return late Tuesday or today and unload today or Thursday. The price paid to fishermen hovered around $5 a pound.

Few customers have been asking for salmon at the retail level, but that's likely to change soon, Hampel said, once word gets out that fresh Chinook is coming in.