The official word is out: California will have a very short chinook salmon season this year.

Because of historically low numbers of adult chinook salmon in the ocean — a lingering effect of the drought — West Coast fishery managers decided to severely restrict the upcoming California commercial salmon season. The decision was announced Tuesday at a meeting of the Pacific Fishery Management Council in Sacramento.

It will begin in May and June in the area from Pigeon Point in San Mateo County south to the Mexico border. Later in the summer, the area that includes San Francisco Bay, between Pigeon Point and Point Arena in Mendocino County, will be open for most of August and September, with a smaller section of the coast also open for part of October.

Farther north, the coastline between Point Arena and Horse Mountain (Humboldt County) will be open only in September, with a 3,000-fish quota, and areas farther north will be closed altogether.

The California recreational salmon fishery south of Eureka opened on schedule April 1, but certain areas will also close for part of the season until it ends in October.

Areas north of Horse Mountain and parts of southern Oregon will be closed this year to protect endangered Klamath River chinook salmon, which are at a record low. Other limits to the season protect endangered winter-run chinook from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta system.

When populations are healthier, chinook salmon are among the most lucrative fisheries in the region, worth $22.7 million in California in 2013.