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Commercial trollers responded to the reductions in their seasons by sponsoring state legislation to establish a limited entry system, enacted in 1983. Limited entry restricts the number and overall fishing capabilities of salmon fishing vessels, to prevent overcapitalization in the fishery. There were about 7000 permitted salmon vessels when limited entry began; now there are less than 2000.

More significantly, working through PCFFA, commercial salmon trollers undertook a comprehensive effort to reform California water and land use policies to improve freshwater habitat conditions for salmon. This was an ambitious and politically difficult effort which the PCFFA board knew would take years to be successful. Powerful interests stood in the way of reform. To keep the fishery viable in the meantime, fishermen had to turn to more effective artificial propagation. Their hope was that as policy and regulatory reforms created long-term habitat protection and restoration, emphasis could be shifted toward natural production, at least in undammed streams. In drainages with irreparable habitat loss, either from dams or from damaging land use, commercial and sport fishermen and responsible, realistic members of the scientific and environmental communities agreed that salmon propagation through hatcheries was the only realisticmeans available to restore salmon numbers. As an initial effort to address short-term production needs, in 1978 PCFFA sponsored legislation, carried by State Senator Barry Keene, which created the Commercial Salmon Trollers Enhancement and Restoration Program (Salmon Stamp Program).

The Salmon Stamp concept was simple: fishermen would tax themselves to pay for increasing freshwater production of young salmon. Codedwire tag recoveries in the troll fishery showed remarkable returns from DFG's pilot program to rear hatchery fish to yearling size. PCFFA proposed to supplement funding for DFG through self-taxation as a way to expand this pilot program, thus increasing the numbers of salmon available for ocean harvest. Fishermen believed that as salmon landings increased, the program could be augmented.

The self-taxation program required purchase of a "stamp," the commercial
fishing salmon stamp, in addition to the basic commercial fishing license.
The Salmon Stamp Program began in 1979 with a $30 stamp, matched by state
funds. The program reared one million surplus hatchery salmon to yearling
size in an unused spawning channel at Mokelumne River Hatchery. When these
fish were ready for their journey to salt water, they were trucked to
release sites in the San Francisco Bay area that were far enough downriver
to avoid the flow of water drawn to the large south-delta pumping plants.
Bypassing the Delta pumps has substantially increased survival of juvenile
salmon and, hence, salmon landings.

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