SALEM, Ore. A ban on salmon fishing this year could kill off much of the ocean charter business in Oregon, operators said Saturday.

''This is disastrous for the coast,'' Rosalind MacArthur of Newport Sportfishing said. ''There's absolutely nothing for us.''

Faced with declining salmon runs, the Pacific Fishery Management Council decided Friday it had to prohibit ocean fishing for any salmon off Washington and northern Oregon this year.

MacArthur said t

he council and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife both know the action means ''absolutely that 60 percent of the charter boats will go under.''

But many charter operators said they weren't surprised by the council's decision after the 13-day sport season last year the shortest ever and warnings from department biologists that 1994 would be worse.

''It's going to be touch-and-go, but we're doing what we can,'' said Russ Sisley, the owner of South Beach Charters in Newport. ''We might all be taking summer vacations

that we don't want to.''

Declines in wild salmon stocks, especially coho or silver salmon, have been blamed on degradation of spawning areas from logging, agriculture and industrial use, development and hydroelectric dams.

The declines were made worse by poor ocean conditions caused by warm-water currents that have hit the coast in recent years, biologists said.

Sisley said it was wrong for sport anglers to bear the brunt of the suffering for salmon declines.

''That's the easiest place to stick it,'' he said.

''I think they really unjustly do that, but it's an easy target.''

Sisley, whose charter operation and store are on the same road as the Oregon Coast Aquarium, said he has tried to shift his emphasis by putting up signs offering whale-watching excursions.

''We get some people, but most of them just come here for the aquarium,'' he said.