A dark gray boat named "OFF HOURS" sails on calm water past a wooden breakwater, with an American flag flying.
The sport fishing boat Off Hours motors through Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026. State managers shortened the area's recreational ocean salmon season, which closes Sunday, Aug. 9, after catch rates ran higher than expected. (Roger Coryell via Bay City News)

FORT BRAGG, CA., 8/7/26 — A sport boat named Off Hours crossed Noyo Harbor on Thursday, rods racked, past the commercial boats tied along the dock — in the final days of a recreational salmon season the state cut short, now set to close Sunday, Aug. 9.

Managers moved up the season’s close for the Fort Bragg area to Sunday, Aug. 9, after recreational catch rates ran higher than expected — an early end to a fishery that only reopened this year, following a three-year closure. For a working waterfront that depends on salmon and Dungeness crab both, it was only half the news.

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