A sockeye salmon is reeled in by a fisherman along the shores of the Fraser River near Chilliwack, B.C., on Sept. 1. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

The banner-year West Coast salmon run isn't done yet, but the race is just about over for British Columbia fishermen to haul in as many wild sockeye as they can muster from the biggest return in nearly a century.

Last call comes from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is shutting down the B.C. Fraser River fishery in stages, starting Tuesday, to make way for endangered coho salmon.

Commercial fishermen are being encouraged to cast their nets one last time this season during a 24-hour sockeye opening, starting 7 a.m. Monday.

"That will be the last chance to fish down in that area with that kind of gear," area director Barry Rosenberger said Sunday. "We're hoping that people get out there."

Some eight million to 10 million wild sockeye will continue to swim up the river, even as fishing vessels stay docked. But with wild coho finishing their own migration to spawning beds in the B.C. Interior between now and November, their best hope of survival is the halting of industry from reeling them in.

Only about 30,000 of the most at-risk stocks of coho are expected to arrive back from their ocean journey this year, Rosenberger said.

According to the Fisheries Department, coho populations — salmon with silvery sides, metallic-blue backs and irregular black spots — have declined by more than 60 per cent since 1996, potentially due to overfishing and environmental changes in their habitats.

Aiming for diversity

"While you certainly want to make opportunities available for fishermen to fish for sockeye, at the same time you don't want to do it in a way that severely compromises other species," said conservationist Mark Angelo, Rivers Institute chair at the B.C. Institute of Technology.

Maintaining a diversity of species throughout the watershed promotes a healthy system where survival is high for all salmon, Angelo said. "If we don't give them a chance, so many of these fish can be picked up as bycatch."

The closure will stretch from the mouth of the Fraser River to Mission, B.C., on Tuesday. It will come into effect from Mission to Hope, B.C., on Thursday and the remainder of the river heading upstream will shut next Saturday.

Recreational fishermen, who are allowed to catch two sockeye per day, will have until Sept. 19 to cast their lines.

By the time all sockeye fisheries close this year, Rosenberger estimates fishermen will have reeled in upwards of 12 million fish of the lucrative run of 34 million. The last time wild sockeye flooded home in such bountiful supply was 1913, when 39 million showed up.