The Pacific Fishery Management Council will host a public hearing in Coos Bay on March 30 to review options for the upcoming ocean salmon seasons off the Oregon Coast.

In meetings the week of March 9, the PFMC announced the strongest hatchery coho abundance forecast since 2001, raising prospects of a banner year for sport fishermen along the coast.

A total of 1.3 million adult coho are forecast for the Oregon Coast and Columbia River this year, up from 290,000 forecasted in 2008.

The council, which includes fishery managers from Oregon, Washington and California, adopted three ocean salmon-fishing options that will be submitted for public review and comment before the seasons are finalized at a meeting in San Francisco scheduled for the week of April 4.

The public meeting in Coos Bay will be held at 7 p.m. on March 30 at the Red Lion Hotel, 1313 N. Bayshore Drive.

PFMC last year adopted a relatively meager recreational ocean fishing quota of 9,000 marked coho south of Cape Falcon to the Oregon-California border. This year's recreational marked coho options for ocean waters off Oregon are significantly larger and include:

• Option 1: 117,000 fish

• Option 2: 100,000 fish

• Option 3: 70,000 fish

All three proposals represent a substantial improvement in fishing opportunities available to Oregon anglers, according to Ron Boyce, Technical Resources Program manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

"We are looking at the potential of a phenomenal sport coho fishery this year," Boyce said in a press release. "The upper end of the proposed harvest quota is the highest we've had since the coho marked selective fishery program began in 1999. I'm excited about that. This could be a real boon to coastal communities."

South of Cape Falcon, near Manzanita, Oregon recreational options for coho range from 70,000 to 117,000 fish, which is up from 9,000 last year. Options for this area include mark-selective coho fishing seasons starting in June or July and running through August, with additional coho opportunity in September.

One of the options includes a three-fish daily bag limit to take advantage of the large abundance of hatchery coho. Options for Oregon sport ocean Chinook fishing in the Brookings area range from closed to open for 10 days in late August and early September.

For the Tillamook, Newport and Coos Bay areas, seasons are proposed for September with a bag limit of up to one Chinook per day.

On the commercial side, Oregon season options in the Brookings area range from closed completely to a season with a 1,000-Chinook quota in September. Season options from Cape Falcon to Humbug Mountain range from closed to open for Chinook and coho in September, with quotas on coho catch and weekly landing limits for both coho and Chinook.

The proposals also were reviewed by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission at its meeting in Salem last Friday.