Seafood lovers will now be able to buy fish directly from the boats at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, now that the Port of San Francisco has decided to allow fishermen to sell direct to the public for a one-year trial period beginning immediately.

Sales of salmon, tuna, rock fish, halibut and bycatch, sold as whole gutted fish only, will be allowed from the 43 commercial fishing boats that already have berths in certain parts of Fisherman’s Wharf Harbor. Potential seafood mongers will need to jump through a few hoops to sell their fish: They’ll need to get a permit from the city, a license from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and to follow various rules and regulations set up by the city’s departments of public health and environment and the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

The Port Commission voted unanimously to allow the retail sales at the harbor at a public meeting on Tuesday at the Ferry Building. Some members of the San Francisco fishing fleet have pushed for permission to sell fish from their boats to have new outlets for their businesses in light of challenging industry developments like the historically low Chinook salmon populations due to the drought and the domoic acid outbreak that seriously impacted the salmon and Dungeness crab catch in recent years.

“The fish harvested by local commercial fishers is a wild, public resource, and San Franciscans have a right to these fish,” wrote Elaine Forbes, executive director of the Port of San Francisco, in a Sept. 8 memo recommending the pilot program. Forbes envisioned it as a farmers’ market type experience at the Wharf that she wrote would “strengthen the relationship between fishers and the community.”

The Port had to balance the needs of fishermen and fish processors, some who have done business at the wharf for generations, when planning the program. No sales of Dungeness crab will be allowed to protect the business of existing crab stands at the wharf.

During a Port meeting in June, Jeanette Caito of Caito Fisheries on Pier 45 expressed opposition to the fact that Joe Pennisi was selling directly to restaurants and fish companies from his boat. But Michael Nerney, Maritime Marketing Manager at the Port, said in an email that Pennisi can only unload the fish into his truck and then sell it, because wholesale sales are not allowed from vessels at the wharf.

Retail shoppers who come to buy fish won’t be allowed to step foot on the boats, and fishermen will only be able to sell from their boats, as opposed to setting up special stands for sales at the harbor. After a year, the port will evaluate how the program goes — both from the consumers’ and fishers’ points of view — before deciding to continue it.

Retail sales were last allowed at the wharf during a brief trial period in 2000 and ended when not enough fishermen participated, Nerney said. However, direct sales may be more popular now, as other California harbors have thriving direct fish sales programs, including Pillar Point in Half Moon Bay and Spud Point in Bodega Bay. Earlier this year, the weekly Tuna Harbor Dockside Market opened in San Diego, where fishermen and shellfish farmers sell directly to customers at a Saturday farmers’ market style pop-up.

Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan