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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Advertisement Email Story to a Friend April 8, 2006 Julie Tomlinson drops fresh cooked crab into cold water Friday at her Dick and Casey�s Seafood Market in Brookings. Tomlinson says tourists want to buy chinook salmon caught off the Oregon Coast, not flown in from Canada. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Imported salmon damage local sales By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune BROOKINGS — Tourists walk into Dick and Casey’s Seafood Market daily to buy chinook salmon landed by one of the commercial boats just outside the market door. Then they discover one of the cruelest ironies uttered in port towns built by the king of salmon. "They can’t believe the fresh salmon’s not from here," market owner Julie Tomlinson says. It’s Canadian salmon, flown in fresh twice a week to Medford and trucked to Brookings. "I’m losing salmon sales constantly because the fish aren’t local," Tomlinson says. "They can just go to the grocery store." Advertisement And it’s only going to get worse. Commercial salmon fishing is banned this year in the ocean from Florence south to Fort Bragg, Calif., to protect depressed Klamath River chinook from harvest. Thursday’s decision by the Pacific Fishery Management Council to allow limited fishing only north and south of that 400-mile stretch means markets like Dick & Casey’s will go without local salmon all year. That’s a huge blow to Tomlinson, who bought just shy of 11,000 pounds of troll-caught chinook from Brookings commercial fishermen as recently as 2003. A bad season last year brought in just a sprinkling of salmon, sending Tomlinson to Canada for the best fish available. "People who walk through the door expect to buy a local fish," Tomlinson says. About a third of her annual business is filleting, canning and smoking salmon caught by recreational anglers, who still have a short spring season this year. But the commercial chinook void will mean she’ll be furrowing the brows of tourists all year. The 44-year-old California refugee began working at Dick and Casey’s in 1994 and bought the company five years ago. She expects to stick it out, relying more on the sales from this year’s record Dungeness crab harvest to eke by. "It makes it hard to operate a small business," Tomlinson says. "I think I picked a bad decade to buy a fish market." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail Imported salmon damage local sales ">[email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback www.bingo.com Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker Custom Build Computers Discount Hotel Reservations online casinos news Ashley Furniture HomeStore Send Flowers Southern Oregon Loans California Casinos GMAT Prep Windermere Van Vleet Sports Equipment Online Casino Reviews Online Bingo Entertainment Guide Online Casino Fundraisers Sudoku Online Casinos Canada Online Pharmacy Advertisement s