Catching bait was really hard today. Catching halibut was hard without live bait, but Cannon Brunkhorst found one that liked dead bait. This one weighed 20 pounds and was hunkered down in 47 feet of water. There were other halibut caught today, mostly on dead bait and jigs, but nobody from here landed one as large as Cannon's. I did hear that there's a couple of large ones that got left behind. Tomorrow is supposed to be windy but the worst is supposed to pass by Friday. I imagine there will be plenty of fishermen trying the bay this weekend. Please try to make space for Cannon. And his head.

 

     Quinn and Dave came out to see if the surf had any stripers in it. Dave caught a couple almost immediately and released them, but after Quinn fought this 29 pounder for a half hour, Quinn decided to keep it. That's a big striper for here and a huge striper for for here in the surf. Nice job, gents. 

    Cannon Brunkhorst had only just arrived here when Quinn dragged in the big striper. Moments later he found himself jumping in a Whaler with Gage and Cameron to try fishing the surf from a different angle. Cameron and Gage didn't catch but Cannon connected to this 18 pounder. It took him around the boat a couple of times. The last time may have been a victory lap to tease Gage. Nice job, Cannon! Not pictured today are the majority of striper fishermen that did not get bit. 

    Tom Brodsky and friend gave the rockcod a try today: "Hey Willy,

Limits of rockcod up to 5lbs today down off 10 mile.

Yesterday 17 rockcod and 14 Crab in outerbay." The halibut fishing was slow again today, so taking the opportunity to fish the ocean with the good weather today was a darn good idea. I bet it seemed like an even better idea when they ate fresh rockcod tonight.

       George Homenko sent over this report to refute my claim of slow halibut fishing:

    "Had a good day fishing on Sunday.  Miller Park looked like it was opening day for dungeness. I'm amazed at how many boats and kayaks were out.  Weekdays for me from now on.   I've been out several times in the last month with no luck, but this time I landed two nice halibut in under 90 minutes.  One was 25 inches and the other was 34 inches.

I was drifting by the red and green day marker north of Hog, in about 20 feet of water.  There was a gentle outgoing current, and I was bouncing frozen herring.  Caught them both near there." 

    Thank you for reminding us that popsicles (frozen bait) are still considered tasty by halibut. Live bait tends to work better but dead bait can still catch. Sometimes it's better than live. Nice work on the flatties, George. I believe that the Miller Park situation was a mix of halibut fishing being perceived as not so good in San Francisco but better here, and a really low tide getting a lot of clammers on the water. It sounds like a few fish are trickling in to San Francisco Bay now too. 

     Tomorrow is last chance for legal Dungeness out here until November. Good luck if you go. Inside Tomales Bay it has been better than it has been but still not good. There's likely a few in the outer bay but I haven't heard any reports. Halibut over the weekend was slow. It was so slow that even Gage couldn't get one to stick to the hook on Saturday morning.  He had four bites but hookups. Friday I caught one by Hog and saw another halibut and striper caught. Most of the action around Hog over the last three days was bat rays, but man, were the rays on fire! If somebody landed the bat ray with a 1.5 ounce underspin swimbait I'd love to get it back. There were a few halibut caught, but very few. Branden Mendoza caught a couple yesterday and sent over this report:

    "Hey Willy. We trolled around today. Tried by hog island with no luck. Went down by the red bar in 19ft of water trolling a white hootchie behind a dodger. Landed the fire fish at 9:30am and then we're gonna leave but the dock was too low and traffic was backed up so we decided to just keep trolling went back to the same spot and picked up another at about 1230. Both were 28 inches and 8lbs." Nice work, Branden. The fish are where you find them.

 

    Gage and I hit the water at 6:00 AM today to catch the low tide at Hog and hopefully find a few halibut biting in the warmer water from the further back bay. The wind was also up early, or really, it never quit last night. Over a choppy and windblown 3.5 hours we caught four halibut to 21 pounds and an eight pound striper. We also released four leopard sharks and missed more bites than I care to think about. Most of the time one or both motors were in reverse to slow the drift and follow the channel. All bites and fish were on live sardines caught near the yellow buoy, except for a halibut on our one live anchovy and the striper bit a small jacksmelt. The nearest boat was probably a half mile away and only one other boat was fishing. With the good weather forecast for this weekend I will guess that if you go fishing at Hog you will see many, many more boats than I did. Just keep the drift slow and the bait active and you have a chance. And if you figure out how to get them fish to stick to the hooks better, Gage and I are very interested because the stinger treble hooks were sure underperforming for us today.