Flat water, again, or should I say, finally. The salmon bit, for a while. Gage says it's like a full moon bite, when the fish bite early and late. True. But it ain't the full moon. I think it's a pressure bite. Little pressure early, little pressure late, but midday, pressure, lots of boats trolling.  Not so much with the biting fish in midday. But a few guys caught some before the pressure shut them down.

   

     Todd Gentry caught this 21 pound salmon today, one of three for the boat. The fish came early in the day. His boat was the second one launched today. Early birds and worms.... Nice fish, sir. Largest today, here. Not a lot of contenders. Nice work, Todd and crew.

     Jody Stover has been here a few days and suffered from the bad weather and crappy fishing. Today he caught a nice salmon. What a difference a fish makes. Jody looks much happier today.

     Halibut has been slow as the bar has cooled off. Hog Island has improved as some of those fish have relocated there, but even an improved Hog Island fishery is still slow. There's fish, and you can catch them, but you're probably not catching limits for multiple people. 

 

    Cameron sent me this: "Missed his name, but a 14 pound striper yesterday afternoon from shore on a live smelt".  Good work, missed name person, as stripers from shore have been pretty rare lately. Especially fourteen pounders.

   Ah, the comment says this is Robert Baker of Folsom, who tricked his father into going to get lunch while he caught fish. Another Gage.... Good work, Robert, and nice gaffing, Robert's mom. And I'm sure the lunch was really good.

 

     Gage hit the water at 6:00 this morning and was able to scratch up a few bites before the wind hit the beach. The two stripers he kept weighed 19 and 32 pounds. He missed several short halibut bites on the bar. 

 

   It was a tough salmon day today. Not that you can tell from this picture of Eddie Kim, Dave Nguyen, and Doug with 26 and 22 pound salmon. Good job, boys! This is the high boat from here. Two other boats had one salmon each. Everyone else was just jealous. Except for...

      .....the Tomales Outlaw(s) that gave up on salmon and caught rockfish instead. The Outlaws are eating well tonight.

   The salmon bite slowed over the weekend. The probable cause was a plethora of trolling boats. A lot of pressure in a small area in relatively shallow water will turn the salmon off. Remove most of the boats and they come back. Most fishermen returning to Lawson's yesterday had zero to two fish. My wife and I went out last night after work and after most boats left and caught three. Gage and Amanda got a later start for two. We both lost one and shook a coho. Less pressure, more fish. Amanda's fish:

    The bar had some halibut over the weekend, not wide open but most fishermen had one or two. The cold water slowed the bite but didn't quite kill it. 

    A report from the water from Alec Bennett says the fish are still biting near the wreck of the American Challenger. This is number two for him and Johnny. There's a fleet of boats but a few biters it seems. 

    Later reports are that there were very few biters. The boats that did well were mostly using very small lures, as the fish were eating very small anchovies.  Do with that as you will.

   Gage sent me this belated photo today with the note: "Anthony Piccardo 21 lb striper and a halibut on the bar Sunday" I'm afraid this got lost in the "oh crap I'm taking the wife fishing" thing last night. Sorry you were missed, Anthony,  but nice fish. Those weren't misses, obviously.