Gage went out with Tom Brodsky today for bluefin. The got this one about 9:00 am and then no other bites. It bit a sardine MadMac 200 35 seconds back at 7 knots. They were between Cordell and the Bodega Canyon. Many boats out trying for bluefin today. Some guys caught (Ryan Giammona of North Bay Fishing Charters was spanking them in the afternoon) and many were sad. Speaking of the sad guys...

    ...Alec Bennett got some nice action shots of our day bluefin fishing. Both fuel filters plugged on the way out. I plumbed past them with some inline filters on the boat Then we trolled and tangled and cursed for 6.5 hours. Then on the way in the inlines plugged up and I barely could get the hoses connected without the filters, but it worked (it shouldn't have). Now to replace all filters. Again. The wrenching wasn't even the worst part of the day. I discovered that trolling MadMacs and spreader bars at the same time is not like chocolate and peanut butter at the same time. It is a tangle machine that eats gear and time, and lots of both. Side note, the crimps on the spreaders will cut and weaken your Spectra to where it just breaks while trolling a MadMac. Awesome. We fished from 38 03 by 123 31 to 38 11 by 123 38 and saw some fish hooked around us at both ends of that range. We saw tiny jumpers at the first numbers. I would write more but I need to go pet my Golden retriever again for some positive affirmation. 

PS. To the gentleman that stopped to help us this morning, thank you. Stopping on your way out is pretty badass. I hope you had some good karma today and mine didn't rub off on you.

     Gale force winds on Saturday kept the fish count low. There were a couple of halibut caught in the bay by a small portion of the few boats that braved the chop. Yesterday the weather was better, not good out on the ocean , but Mike Mack went out and found the bonito off of Elephant Rock in 200 feet of water and caught his fill. He also got beat up by the rough conditions. 

    Also of note: There are a lot of Dungeness inside the bay. Shore snarers are reeling in about ten Dungeness for every red keeper they're catching. Most of the Dungies are not quite the size we need them to be but many of them are. No telling how long they'll last once the season opens (as we are recycling the crabs now) but the opener looks promising. The ocean conditions being kind of atypical this year, there's a possibility of a domoic acid delay, or at least the pessimists think so. Nobody is dropping dead from eating the red crab, though, and nobody is testing the reds either, so I guess nobody is worried? 

 

    Yes, Virginia, there are bluefin at Cordell. And off the Farallones and Half Moon Bay. But I can only speak for the fish at the northern-most point. Gage found one yesterday at 06 31 at 11:00 am. We went there today. It was rougher that forecast but the definition of fishable. We had to slow down to MadMac speed (10 knots or so) 10 miles short of Gage's numbers from yesterday as the weather was no bueno and we were beating up the boat (and us). We threw the macs in and trolled the 10 miles. As we were going to swap out the Madmacs for spreader bars at the numbers we hooked up. A good rule for fishing is of you're catching don't change your method. We caught our limits (4) of bluefin at 06 by 31 in 90 minutes on Madmacs at 10 knots. Other guys had bigger fish farther south but I don't leave fish to find fish. They also had limits. There were probably a few with nothing as fishing can be a fickle b*tch. There were lots of bluefin caught from below the Half Moon Bay weather buoy to at least our numbers. There may be a weather window next week. 

      Last weekend the fishing was pretty much bad, unless you were Stephen James of Ukiah. He caught a second halibut on Sunday, again across from the Landing, but a bit smaller.  Also on a Redrum jig. Mike Mack and company had one salmon on Saturday and a few bonito but just lingcod on Sunday. 

Today Gage and his buddy Mason had one bluefin to 20 pounds at Cordell.  Tomorrow?  There's been quite a few bluefin caught near Cordell banks over the last few days. Probably more tomorrow,  and hopefully some by Gage and I. More to come...

 

     Stephen James of Ukiah started us off today with this nice 18 pound halibut caught right across the bay from the Landing. It bit a white 2 oz. Redrum tube. There's not no fish in the bay, just almost none, and now there's one less, but what fantastic weather to go sit in a boat.