Anglers may continue to fish for Pacific halibut south of Humbug Mountain, but the nearshore waters inside 40 fathoms on the central coast are closed as of 11:59 p.m. PDT Thursday, Sept. 21. The Columbia River sub-area fishery north of Cape Falcon closed earlier this month.

“This has been one of Oregon’s most successful sport halibut seasons,” said Don Bodenmiller, sport halibut project leader for ODFW. “Oregon’s sport halibut quota was more than 276,400 pounds. That’s up about 4 percent from last year and is more than twice the halibut quota of 10 years ago.”

Earlier this month fisheries managers increased the all-depth fishery daily bag limit from one to two fish and expanded sport halibut season days to every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The fishery was scheduled to close the end of October if the quota was not achieved.

“In past years we sometimes left fish on the table,” Bodenmiller noted. “We wanted to provide plenty of opportunity for anglers because we know that many fishermen have other things to do in October – like go hunting.”