Oregon’s seafood industry is an component of the state’s economy.
Oregon seafood is landed in ports including Astoria, Warrenton, Garibaldi, Pacific City, Deboe Bay, Newport, Florence, Winchester Bay, Charleston, Bandon, Port Orford, Gold Beach, and Brookings.
Oregon has been recognized for its coldwater shrimp fisheries. The State’s trawl fishery for pink shrimp was is the first shrimp fishery worldwide to be certified under the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) program.
Oregon also has a Dungeness crab fishery. The state allows a limited entry fishery with a relatively stable number of boats in the fishery. A pot limitation program controls fishing pressure on the resource.
Oregon has commercial salmon fisheries for chinook, steelhead, and other salmon. Along the coast, commercial fishermen troll for ocean chinook salmon. Multiple gillnet fisheries exists on the Columbia River.
Along 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. In addition, fishermen participate in a special fishery for aquaculture-raised salmon in Youngs Bay. Gillnetters in this fishery may also catch hatchery runs if there is a surplus.
Along the Oregon coast, commercial fishermen harvest albacore tuna, sardines, Pacific whiting, and a variety of groundfish.
Pacific Whiting is an important fishery for the state. Large factory trawlers harvest Pacific whiting and process the fish on-board. Other trawlers catch and transfer their whiting to motherships which process the fish on fishing grounds.
Oregon commercial fishing ventures harvest other groundfish including lingcod, canary rockfish, Pacific ocean perch, darkblotched rockfish, yelloweye rockfish, widow rockfish, Dover sole, sablefish, shortspine thornyhead, and other species.
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