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.

 

   Slooow this week. The Swampy report: "Evening,

Spent Tuesday all day trying to catch bait. Ended up with 13 whole baits of various grades. Got my Dad out for a lot of drifts on Wednesday with him catching one short and a couple missed bites. Great year again and waterfowl better watch out. Thanks for another great year at your little bay.

Swampy " That means the halibut fishing in the bay is bad. If Swampy ain't catching the rest of us are kinda belly up. I can confirm that I couldn't catch in the bay. At least you had some sun on your stay, Swampy. Look for the bright spots. And ducks.

   Gage found the bonito yesterday. On his way to Point Reyes to try for salmon he found birds working at 38 08 by 123 00. He was only able to get two lines in before he hooked up on both. He limited with his ten fish and the boat running with him landed six bonito on salmon gear, losing about as many. Gage used albacore gear, both feathers and Rapalas, trolled at 5 to 7 knots, and his largest fish weighed 13# gutted. 

    I had a morning meeting so I didn't launch until after 1:30. No bites on the bar for me but I caught one halibut in 45 feet of water by Tomales Point on a Redrum jig, probably not coincidence that it was the turn of the tide. No more bites for me. I started running down to where Gage had caught his bonito but it was almost 3:00 so I stopped in 150 feet of water off the Trees and trolled two lines northwest. Off Tomales Point fifteen minutes later I saw a boil next to the boat and maybe ten seconds later my Rapala got bit. One bonito later I went home as I had no ice. If you can find feeding birds there seems to be lots of bonito. If you can't there's a few scattered about. Water temperature was 54 to 56 degrees.