Capt. Greg Squires caught these nice chinook off the North Coast. This time of year, salmon will likely be between 30 and 50 feet deep and shallower early in the morning. Trolling baits and lures is a good way to locate schools. Photo by Chris Shaffer.

In 2006, many salmon anglers, salmon guides and commercial anglers took time off work to fight a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to close the entire ocean salmon season outside the Golden Gate.

Dozens of protests and thousands of letters later, anglers were permitted to chase salmon in the salt -- under tighter restrictions.

It's still unclear if recreation fishermen will have another battle this year with the Feds and environmentalists. Time will tell. We do know there will be salmon to chase in the ocean this year.

Nevertheless, most anglers are cautious with predictions about how many will be there.

In 2005, the Fish and Wildlife Service predicted an enormous run of 1.6 million fish -- a run that never played out.

In 2006, another bold run of 1.5 million fish was expected. (This is because commercial fishermen took nearly a half-million fish from the normal allotment.) Still, 2006 was anywhere from fair to fair.

So we come to the million-dollar question. Will 2007 be our third big disappointment? Or will the salmon make a comeback?

"I think 2007 is going to write history when the season opens," said veteran six-pack guide Capt. Greg Squires, of Access to Angling Outfitters.

"Anyone who wants to try to predict the ocean season at this point, based on the poor river returns, is an idiot. I don't want to go out on a limb about it. I don't think anyone does."

Squires said that to hazard a guess at the river in 2007, we have to go back to 2003 and 2004.

Those years were below average as far as numbers go. California had decent runs of fish in September 2003 and in 2004.

But it wasn't good in August and October as it normally would be. We had a heyday of three weeks, and that was it.

"That's when the salmon fishing in the Sacramento River started to decline," said the skipper.

In 2006, ocean salmon fishing was way below average, Squires said.

"Last year, we had much warmer water in the Bay and outside the Golden Gate near the shore," he said.

"The temperatures were way up from where they normally are."

That pushed bait way offshore. To catch fish, captains had to go farther out and farther north. The fish were looking for cooler water where the zooplankton, the krill, anchovies and sardines are, Squires said.