PHOTO: The dory fishermen's market.

DUNCAN MACLEAN selected four salmon from the ice chest in the back of his fishing boat, weighed them, slipped them into plastic bags, and handed them to a smiling customer. In May he had been about ready to walk away from his life as a commercial fisherman: wholesalers were offering $1 a pound for fish that had fetched $3 or more in years past. "We couldn't even cover our costs at this price," he said. "We were driven to bankruptcy." Now, he hopes to hang in by bypassing the brokers and selling dock-to-table. At $3.50 a pound the gorgeous silver-scaled fish were a good deal, both for the consumer and for MacLean.

"This is better for you and it is better for us," said his customer, Carolyn Fujimoto. Other seafood lovers have flocked to harbors up and down the coast from Newport Beach to Humboldt Bay this autumn to buy wild fish directly from the people who caught them.

More and more commercial fishermen are learning to market their catch directly to appreciative consumers in an effort to survive the crunch of global forces that drive down the value of their harvest. This crunch is particularly severe for California salmon fishermen like MacLean. On the one hand, they must abide by strict restrictions on when, where, and how many king salmon they may catch. These restrictions have been imposed not because of overfishing but because dams, water diversion projects, and logging have destroyed spawning habitat. The more habitat is lost, the stiffer the regulations are on fishermen.

On the other hand, the fishermen are facing competition from salmon producers in Norway, Chile, Washington's Puget Sound, and elsewhere who raise their fish (mostly Atlantic salmon) in pens or cages suspended in coastal bays - without having to worry about dams, ocean storms, or salmon quotas. Chile alone, a country with no native salmon, now exports to the United States, by cargo plane, 30 thousand tons of farmed salmon a year. Compare that to the annual catch of king salmon in California, which ranges between two and seven million pounds.

Many supermarkets prefer this fish even when wild salmon is available because farmers can supply it in large volume at predetermined sizes year-round. And as salmon farms proliferate, so do the packaged spinoffs for the "grab-and-go" shopper: salmon patties, salmon hot dogs, and, yes, salmon baloney.

As farmed salmon undercuts the price of wild salmon, California fishermen become pawns rather than players in the global fish market. This year the vise tightened. With Asian economies in trouble, the demand for seafood imports in those countries dropped, and salmon farmers from Chile to Norway stepped up exports to the United States. Wholesale prices for wild salmon in California have gone into freefall.

Seeing that people were paying $7 to $8 a pound in supermarkets for salmon raised in pens halfway around the world, the Association decided "we could offer salmon that was fresher and better-tasting at half this price if we cut out the middlemen." All they needed was a retail venue. They found it right beneath their feet: on the sterns of their berthed vessels. To use it, however, they also needed commercial activity permits from harbor authorities. In Pillar Point, that meant approaching the San Mateo County Harbor Commission.

The Commission charges fish brokers $225 a year for such permits to help offset harbor maintenance costs. In this case, though, it decided to waive the fee and grant emergency permits to the down-and-nearly-out fishermen, for $1 a year. "They already pay berthing fees to help defray these costs," explained Peter Grenell, general manager of the San Mateo County Harbor District. Indeed, the well-being of the harbor is linked directly to that of the fishermen. Their berthing fees represent the harbor district's largest source of revenue.

With permits in hand, the fishermen faced another test. Would enough people in the area drive to Half Moon Bay to buy fish? "We had no ad budget to let consumers know we even existed," said MacLean. "We needed free media coverage." On an outside chance, the fishermen contacted CNN. "We were lucky. It must have been a slow news day," says MacLean. "We were on national TV news and received exposure no supermarket ad money could ever buy."

Customers came by the hundreds. On the first day, some fishermen sold their weekly catch of 60 salmon in three hours or less. In the next nine days they sold over 10,000 pounds of fish. "We were back to making a living," said MacLean.

The harbor's seaside ambiance obviously appeals to shoppers tired of the vast indoor caverns of the impersonal supermarket. No salmon patties in shrink-wrap here. Entire families, from grandparents to babes in arms, survey and select for the dinner table. Some stop for a snack or a cup of coffee before heading home.

Because of health regulations, dockside fishermen only sell whole fish or fish that are gilled and gutted. A local fish market does a bustling business cutting whole salmon purchases into fillets and steaks. "The dockside sales have had a very positive impact on overall harbor operations," said Pillar Point harbormaster Dan Temko.

Encouraged by such acceptance, the fishermen want to continue selling fish here year-round. On October 21, the Commission extended their emergency permit to March 31, 1999.

Fishermen have also been selling boat- to-table in Santa Barbara, Morro Bay, Santa Cruz, Moss Landing, San Francisco, Bodega Bay, and Humboldt Bay. In Newport Beach, dory fishermen have been selling their daily catch from beachside stalls since 1891.

California coastal fishermen are also learning other ways to influence their future. Parravano, as president of the San Francisco- based Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, works with the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and others to protect salmon habitat. "Unlike the so-called Wise Use Movement, we don't want to roll back the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws," he said. "As fishermen, we want these laws implemented to protect habitat."

The Association also works with coastal fishing groups around the world that are concerned about habitat loss and overfishing by large industrial fleets. Out of necessity, he and his fellow fishermen are becoming players, rather than pawns, in the global fish market. 

Wesley Marx has written widely on fishery and marine conservation issues. His e-mail address is wmarx@primenet.com.