Barb Pope caught this 17.5 pounder yesterday on a dead herring drifted this side of Hog Island. Three years in a row she has been the killer of the group from St. Helena. I'm sure that the rest of them are killers in their own right, but Barb just kicks it up a notch or three. Nice work, Barb, and very nice of you to sit it out today and let somebody else have a chance. They didn't catch any halibut without you, so... Well, get some, Barb. The halibut misguidedly like you. Most fishermen had the opposite response from the few halibut present. The catching sucked, as it kind of has. Some very good fishermen had a few fish this weekend but would normally be celebrating multiple limits over the weekend. Three years no salmon= no halibut. That's algebra I learned in 2010 after two years of no salmon. Three years is worse. Next year halibut fishing will suck, and suck hard. It will be a year to separate the men from the boys. I hope you do as well next year, Barb. For all of us.

     Howard Law sent over this picture with the report:" Not a bad day on the big pond. Threw back a  bunch of smaller ones." Those are some nice rockcod. Probably even better fish tacos. Nice work, Howard and crew. Last time Howard tried to fish somebody pulled out in front of him and he was in a pretty horrible crash. Good for the fish, I guess, but it kinda sucked for Howard. Well, payback's a, you know what.

     So, here it is Friday night and I'm finally posting Swampy's Tuesday report. I suck, but Swampy surely doesn't, as he tells it true:

     "Evening,

Should have been here yesterday. Tough bait today, plan C and D finally worked. Hit the bar and interior hard for two butts. Jake, Swampy Jr, scored a 14 pounder and Alex got a clicker. Great time as always and see you next trip. She ain’t singing yet……" The fat lady is surely warming up, though. She's not singing but she's doing the throat exercises to get ready to sing. It sounds like gargling and wind. Solid work, Swampy family, snatching a few fish from the jaws of .... well, the end of halibut season, such as it was. Keep in mind, as bad as this past season's halibut catching was, next year will be worse, and as halibut grow and spawn slowly (Sucks, but at least they don't need a river of fresh water in California like some prima donna like salmon) they will recover at the same slow rate. (Also sucks, but what are you gonna do? Run a hatchery?). I predict good halibut fishing in 2030. Until then we grind.

 

     This is one of those reports that I've been waiting for. Chris DeTrani moved here from the East Coast a few years ago and bought a boat to go salmon fishing. Bad timing, as he hasn't been able to fish decent local(ish) salmon water since the purchase. But Saturday last, "Worth the ride down. 90’ of water and 40’ down just below Point Reyes. 35” and 30”. 

Chris " I gotta bet those fish taste really, really good. Good on you, Chris. Maybe next year we'll have more chances at them. I took Alec Bennett with me yesterday for the end of season. We finished with our four, largest about 15 pounds, right about where Chris went, just deeper. They finally went on the bite after noon in 160 feet of water. We called in Mike Mack who finished with three. Okay, it wasn't a good bite but the grinding and scratching got quicker. It didn't sound too different farther south, as we saw the New Easy Rider out of Berkley tack past us at Point Reyes. That's a lot of good salmon water to drive past to get there. Some guys killed them on Sunday, but for most fishermen the season ended not with a bang but with a whimper.

    I received this report from Gage on Saturday with the message: "Megan Porterfield (not pictured) landed this 20 lb halibut near the bar on a Nomad jig." Seemed like a lot of beard for a Megan (not that there's anything wrong with it). This appears to be a Richard Porterfield and he put the boat over the fish Megan caught, so there you go. I'm guessing that Megan was jigging a Squidtrex as those have been accounting for some fish this year. Nice work Megan (and Richard, I guess).

     The halibut have been biting about as well as I've been posting, so very slow. Yesterday had a lot of zero reports at the launch. We didn't tell Swampy the fish weren't biting and look at the report he sent over this evening: "Evening,

Swampy Jr was on fire today, but everyone caught fish. 3 poles for 6 fish mostly from the bar. Biggest going 14 pounds. Got tomorrow to try again 

Swampy." 'Try? Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.' Said a tiny green wise man(?). It doesn't look like you tried today, just did. Keep doing that. Nice work Swampy, Swampy Jr. and unpictured third person that caught at least one fish and took this photo.

    This is a photo of the boat lights just outside of the Golden Gate Bridge on Thursday. Not pictured are all the boats running without lights, and their number was nonzero. We saw a couple of shadows pass between us and other boats. Holy crap. Only one boat filled with water and flipped over. Pretty good, IMHO. 

   In answer to question in the comments about the federal vs. the state rockcod regulations, my short answer is : Bureaucy. Longer explanation: The state only regulates the waters inside of three miles. The feds go out like 200 miles (don't get me started.  I think we blew up Qaddafi's son or nephew because he claimed the Gulf of Sidra, but whatever; we have the F111's to make it happen). So, you can rockfish any depth within the three-mile limit. When the feds vote this month sometime they will extremely likely vote to make it true outside of the three mile limit, as this was their idea. So by October you'll be good to go all depths. 

Until they change their minds again....

     Happy second salmon season! I just finished a dinner of fresh salmon bellies, collars and dumpster salmon (grilled bones with meat on them) with a bit (more than a bit!) of Thai sweet chili sauce. Heavenly! It was almost worth it! I've been up since 2:00 AM, driving to Emeryville to get on the New Huck Finn on a charter by Larry Varela. I've never fished out of the gate before and now have experienced Duxbury and Muir Beach. After screwing up spectacularly (sorry Scott and your down stream tangle buddy) I sorta figured it out. It was completely new to me but it sure works. My way here is more fun, but putting bodies in the boat is key, so this method works well. Not driving the boat was key to my enjoyment, as bum. per boats seemed to be most people's experience level. What's a boater's card? We limited by 2 with most of our fish caught at Dux but we had to pull and run to Muir to finish, and Muir had the largest fish. My limit fish came off of Gage's rod on the bow at about 20 pounds at Muir. Here's a pic of my cousin Nathan from South Carolina who came to catch salmon. 

   Quick summary: He did. No heads, as half of our fish were fin clipped hatchery fish and the fish counters were apparently omnipresent, as they were during the last short season. Expect the same wherever you go. Lots of monitoring, and let's be clear, lots of hatchery fish. As only a quarter of the fish from the hatcheries are actually fin clipped and chipped, let our 50% rate be your guide. They are all hatchery fish, as the river can't support salmon. It turns out that they need water, and water is money. It just is. Smolts trucked past the Delta and river tend to live to adulthood. Thanks truckers! It worked! Bummer, extirpated wild fish. I'm sure heaven is nice. Your highway star cousins sure taste good.

     Mike Mack and Spinner were not invited to Larry's charter and ran down past Point Reyes today for these three salmon. These guys are here almost every weekend to fish for whatever they can. Not surprisingly, salmon was on the menu today. It is not as good at Point Reyes as it is closer to the salmon funnel at the Golden Gate. Surprise, surprise. But two of these fish weighed in at 20 and 19 pounds. For a year without salmon, that sounds pretty awesome. It ain't red hot. But dinner, man, oh boy. Even better, I heard that Jesse Keilman and crew limited, eventually. after running from here to Point Reyes. Nice work gents.

    Here's a picture of me last week on the return from the albacore trip. Alec Bennett took the photo but it was out of spite, as he wanted to sleep in the beanbag chair. I get it, after sleeping in it. West Marine may be having a hard time like every other retailer, but their beanbag chair IS THE FRICKING BOMB.  I was out. Hard. Good times are the hard times. But the beanbag makes them easier.

     Here's the August finale we all wanted, except it has somebody else's faces in the picture. 

    These guys are big, and this photo doesn't do the fish proper justice. That being said, Michael Cameron of Cameron Park caught the 45 pound halibut in the photo and his friend, Todd Gentry of Sacramento landed this 36 pounder. Gage's text was, "45/36 lbs on the bar large grade jack smelt." It's a good text. I heard of at least one other jumbo that the fisherman didn't want weighed as it could cause a rush of fishermen. The real fact is, I think we're seeing the results of the last pulse of fish to come in to spawn. Fishing (catching, really) will suck again for a while. The pictured fishermen went without a fish yesterday and limited early today. They are obviously good fishermen, but today there were fish to catch. Tomorrow? I'll let you know later, but there may be a few stragglers from yesterday's push in. The day after? Should have been here yesterday...

   Most of the rockfishing has been pretty decent in the shallows and now that the deeper water has opened up the scores should increase. Canary rockfish catching should triple immediately with the two-fish limit. The largest canaries I ever caught were during the canary closure a few decades back.