Tacoma anglers will have an additional month to fish for salmon next spring. The expansion is part of the salmon fishing seasons the Pacific Fishery Management Council adopted Wednesday.

Recreational salmon fishing locally will open June 1 and run through Dec. 31. The expanded spring season in 2010 will be open from Feb. 1 to April 30. That’s about five weeks longer than this spring.

That extended season is just one of an expanded number of opportunities to fish for hatchery salmon in Puget Sound, an expansion some people are calling historic.

“It’s the most significant step forward in expanding selective fishing since the concept was conceived in the ’90s,” said Tony Floor, fishing affairs director for the Northwest Marine Trade Association.

“This year’s package of salmon fisheries accomplishes that goal while also providing anglers good fishing opportunities throughout Washington’s waters,” said Phil Anderson, interim director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“I’m happy – not thrilled, but happy,” said Art Tachell of the Point Defiance Boathouse Marina.

“I would like to have seen them make it year round. That would have helped our business out,” Tachell said. “But any more fishing opportunity I’m happy about. Any liberalization is good news.”

Because Columbia River stocks are in good shape, commercial fishing off Washington’s coast should be close to normal, industry leaders also said.

“I wouldn’t say it’s going to be a great year, but for this year, Washington will have more or less a normal fishing year,” said Glen Spain, Northwest regional director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

That’s good news compared to the fishing ban facing commercial anglers in Oregon and California, also announced Wednesday by the federal council.

The state Fish and Wildlife Department and Puget Sound treaty tribes negotiate fishing seasons in Puget Sound. They do so under constraints, because some Puget Sound salmon stocks are protected by the Endangered Species Act.

“Even as we add these fisheries, we’re able to meet our conservation goals and give anglers some great opportunities to fish for hatchery chinook in Puget Sound,” said Pat Pattillo, the department’s salmon policy coordinator.

Anglers fishing in Marine Areas 9 and 10, in the Seattle area, also will have an expanded opportunity. They’ll be able to fish for salmon in a nonquota season running from July 16 to Aug. 31.

Another area seeing a significant expansion is the San Juan Islands. Winter blackmouth fishing was expanded to Dec. 1 through April 20, more than two months longer than this season.

Ocean anglers also should expect a good season, said Larry Giese, owner of Deep Sea Charters at Westport, Grays Harbor County, and a federal fishery commission member. The ocean quota is 176,400 coho and 20,500 chinook. This season’s quotas were 20,000 coho and 20,000 chinook.

“Everyone down here is pretty excited about it,” Giese said. “We have a quota of silvers that is nine times what we caught last year.”

Here’s how the season is shaping up:

Ilwaco: Open daily from June 28 to Sept. 30, or until the area quota is reached.

Westport: Sundays through Thursdays starting June 28, then open daily from July 23 to Sept. 20, or until the quota is met.

LaPush/Neah Bay: Open Tuesdays to Saturdays beginning June 27. Could switch to daily fishing July 17. Will close Sept. 20 or when the quota is met.

Fueling the improved recreational ocean fishing opportunities is the Columbia River coho forecast that calls for a return of more than 1 million fish, which would be the largest return since 2001.

Also adding to angler opportunities is the expected return of 5.1 million pink salmon to Puget Sound streams, including the Green and Puyallup rivers. A run that size would be nearly 2 million more fish than forecast in 2007. Pink salmon return to Washington’s waters only in odd-numbered years.

This is the 25th year of the North of Falcon meetings, the process for setting the salmon fishing seasons. It’s named for the Oregon cape the management council uses to mark the start of the northern fishery area that includes Washington.

“We created North of Falcon a quarter-century ago to work cooperatively for the benefit of the salmon resource, as well as Indian and non-Indian fishermen,” said Lorraine Loomis, Swinomish tribal fisheries manager and tribal North of Falcon coordinator.

“The tribes are just as committed to the process today as we were then, because it works.”

Jeffrey P. Mayor: 253-597-8640

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SALMON SEASONS IN THE TACOMA AREA

Here are the basic seasons for Marine Area 11, which runs from the northern tip of Vashon Island to the Tacoma Narrows bridges.

EARLY season: June 1 to Dec. 31, the same as last year. Two-salmon limit, but anglers can keep two pink salmon.

Spring season: Feb. 1, 2010, to April 30, 2010. This year’s spring season opened Feb. 14 and closes today.

Details: Regulations for marine areas in Washington and part of the Columbia River will be available next week at wdfw.wa.gov/fish/northfalcon.