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Good catch rates and higher participation than expected have triggered a mid-season closure until July of the commercial chinook salmon-fishing season off the Southern Oregon coast. With Tuesday’s landings, commercial fishermen exceeded their 1,500-chinook quota for June in just nine days of fishing, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. That puts the commercial fleet at bay until July 5, the start of three weeks of fishing under new quotas that could be adjusted after June’s quota was eclipsed by 11 chinook, according to ODFW. The 42-boat commercial fleet off Southern Oregon this month was larger than anticipated, largely because poor May catches to the north prompted some commercial fishermen to focus their efforts farther south. Also, catches have been good off Southern Oregon for a fleet focusing on a robust run of Rogue River-bound fall chinook, which are now heading north from California waters. The July season will open as scheduled, with fishing allowed July 5-12 and July 16-31, with each vessel allowed up to 50 chinook per week, ODFW states. The June closure was ordered by NOAA-Fisheries in consultation with state and federal fish managers and representatives of the commercial fleet, according to ODFW. Sport anglers from Humbug Mountain near Port Orford to the California border are in the midst of a 100-day ocean-fishing season, and both the sport and commercial fleet are feasting on an estimated 462,800 Rogue fall chinook that are now in the ocean. That’s almost twice the number of last year, when sport and commercial ocean seasons were shuttered because of poor returns to the Klamath River. This year’s Rogue River chinook entered the ocean during the drought years of 2014 and 2015, but they largely escaped low and warm summer flows, thanks to supplemental water from Lost Creek and Applegate reservoirs. An estimated 130,000 chinook are predicted to return to the Rogue this fall, up about 40,000 from last year’s return that triggered the best Rogue Bay sport-fishing catches in at least two decades, according to ODFW. Ocean sport fishing is not affected by the commercial closure. Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman.