Oregon commercial fishing includes fisheries for pink shrimp, crabs, clams, sea urchins, tuna, salmon, sardines, Pacific whiting, and several other species of groundfish.
The Oregon commercial fishing, seafood, and aquaculture industries have a significant impact on the state’s economy.
Important Oregon ports include Astoria, Warrenton, Garibaldi, Pacific City, Deboe Bay, Newport, Florence, Winchester Bay, Charleston, Bandon, Port Orford, Gold Beach, and Brookings.
The Oregon Dungeness crab industry is the state’s most valuable fishery. Oregon is the top producer of Dungeness crab worldwide.
Oregon has three types of commercial salmon fisheries:
An ocean troll chinook fishery along the Oregon coast. Commercial fishermen using this method catch fish by slowly towing lines which consist of baited rigs or artificial lures.
An open gillnet fishery exists on the lower Columbia River.
A native American treaty gillnet fishery exists on the Columbia River. Native American tribes are entitled to catch limited numbers of fall chinook and steelhead under treaties with the U.S. government specifying that the tribes reserved the right to fish “at all usual and accustomed fishing sites in common with citizens of the United States.” The fall chinook run typically makes up the largest portion of the Columbia River salmon catch.
A fishery for albacore tuna exists along the Oregon coast. The Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) has a highly migratory species (HMS) fisheries management plan (FMP) in place for albacore tuna.
Pacific Whiting is another important fishery. Most Oregon whiting are landed by mid-water trawl vessels which hold a federal exempted fishing permit (EFP). Non-EFP vessels may also land whiting, but are subject to groundfish trip limits, and must discard prohibited species.
There is also a large Pacific whiting at-sea fishery off the Oregon Coast. Large factory trawlers harvest Pacific whiting and and process the fish on-board. Motherships also process fish at sea that are caught by smaller vessels and transferred
Other Oregon groundfish include lingcod, canary rockfish, Pacific ocean perch, darkblotched rockfish, yelloweye rockfish, widow rockfish, Dover sole, sablefish, and shortspine thornyhead.
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