I can state with some excitement that lots of crab are being caught inside Tomales Bay. Most of the boaters I spoke with over the last week have been pulling pots and hoops full of crab. Good times! Except almost all of the crab are shorts. One of our locals, while running his hoops near Marker 5, dumped 150+  short crab back into the bay and had three crab that were exactly 5 3/4" for his effort. Those crabs went back as well. Lots of "clickers." Way more "next season, maybes." Way, way more. I haven't heard any reports from the outer bay, as you pretty much couldn't there from here for the last couple of weeks. Big swell has eliminated any "safe" passage over the Tomales Bar lately. There has been a steady flow of commercial boats working pots out there, and that's an indicator. Not a good one. For a commercial guy out of Bodega, the outer bay is a balance between fuel costs and poor crabbing. Catching a few in your front yard can be better than catching a few more farther away for more diesel. It means crabbing sucks. This is that time of year, as the crab tend to clutch around now and lose their interest in food. You know there's a short list of things that get between a man and his food, and this is the big one. The urge should pass in a few months, hopefully well before the whales make their triumphant return. February and March are always the slowest crabbing. So the good news is, it will get better. 

     The pelicans have been feeding in front of the Boathouse the last few days. I don't know if that means the herring are coming in or going out, but some fish are getting eaten as they pass over the bar in the middle of the bay. There's been a few surfperch caught lately, not a lot, but some. The ocean is still 56º, so there may be a few halibut out there biting although nobody's talking if they're catching them. There's still squid spawning down on Ten Mile, and if we don't get a week of west wind before March 1 there may be a white seabass window around the moon. Probably it will just be squid catching opportunity, but that's not that bad. Have you purchased squid lately? Catching your own is money in the bank (or freezer). Boat rockfishing opens on April 1, just in time for the wind to roar, but if we get a window my frying pan demands its tribute. 

     I was looking for an upbeat report to start this off, but no go. Crabbing? Just okay. Fishing? Let's talk about the crabbing. Maybe I'm just upset by recent news. I heard last week that Roberto, a halibut killer that I did not know personally but a guy that was acknowledged here as a halibut magician, passed away. Good for the halibut, I guess, but I was hoping that a salmon season would do the trick to help.  Roberto was an indicator like birds diving or baitfish boiling that you were in the right spot. Birds know things and recognize things that we don't because we aren't wired like them, and their knowing is necessary for their continued living. Roberto had that kind of knowing. He couldn't express how he knew, but what he knew was dead on. A little story:

  Years ago, Frank Green, one of my halibut mentors, started talking about some fisherman he'd been seeing catching lots of halibut while Mr. Green had been catching, well, less. Frankie called him "the Mexican." Whatever his name, he was catching a lot of halibut and tagging them, mostly, as he kept his limit and then started tagging the multiple other halibut he caught and released. If you caught a decent sized halibut with a tag on it, probably Roberto tagged it. The story is that Frank was trying to figure out what Roberto was doing, and he couldn't just by watching, so one day Frank dropped in for another drift on the bar just downdrift from Roberto and then let his line out far, so that he eventually snagged one of Roberto's lines. He then reeled in the "tangled" line to clear it and get a look at Roberto's setup. As I recall the story, Roberto had a single, small treble hook with a live anchovy pinned to it. I have tried this myself, since then, when I can catch anchovies, and yes, it works really well. I like the Owner ST-36 treble in size 8 through the nose of the anchovy. Will it make you as good a halibut fisherman as Roberto? Hell, no. But it can help. And maybe keep a little bit of Roberto around a while longer. 

      The crabbing remains on the slow side in the bay but there's still pretty consistent catching, both from boats and from the shore. Not as many as most crabbers were looking for, generally, but a few crab, which is better than none. The currents have been brutal the last few days and will continue to suck through the weekend as the full moon and king tides do their thing. 

      The missing boat has been found and is now home on its trailer, ready for a new adventure. I heard this morning that it was recovered by a NOAA vessel 150 miles south and 40 miles offshore. It had maybe a gallon of water in it and that was probably rain. I guess it missed the rocks. I'm glad it worked out, but still, I recommend a good anchor, as it can save you an unplanned trip to Monterey as a best case scenario. 

      In other news, we get a sorta sneak preview for salmon season decisions next month. Herer's the press release from CDFW:

"CDFW to Host Public Meeting on

California’s Salmon Fisheries 

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) invites the public to attend its annual Salmon Information Meeting. The hybrid meeting will feature the outlook for this year’s ocean salmon fisheries, in addition to a review of last year’s salmon fisheries and inland spawner returns.

This year, the meeting will be held in person at the California Natural Resources Agency Auditorium at 715 P St. in Sacramento on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026, at 1 p.m., and will also be livestreamed online.

The 2026 Salmon Information Meeting marks the beginning of a two-month public process to help develop annual sport and commercial ocean salmon fishing seasons. The input is also used to inform inland salmon season development later in the spring.

The annual pre-season salmon management process involves collaborative negotiations between west coast states, federal agencies, tribal co-managers, commercial troll representatives, commercial passenger fishing vessel representatives, private recreational anglers, non-governmental organizations and others interested in salmon fishery management and conservation.

These leaders utilize the most current information shared at the Salmon Information Meeting to work together to develop a range of recommended ocean fishing season alternatives at the March 4-9 Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) meeting in Sacramento, Calif. Final season recommendations will be adopted at the PFMC’s April 7-12 meeting in Portland, Ore.

Salmon Information Meeting details, agenda, informational materials and instructions to view the livestream will be published in advance of the event on CDFW’s Ocean Salmon web page. Livestream login information and a handout with the meeting presentations will be posted by the morning of Feb. 25. Please see the Ocean Salmon web page for a complete Calendar of Events and contact information regarding the Salmon Preseason Process, including other opportunities for engagement in the ocean salmon season development process."

       When your lead story is that nothing happened it's hard to start a report. Also, other events conspired against me, such as the final undergrounding of our electricity here and getting the new wastewater system commissioned. It's a lot of work, and the post-work beers after stressful days get in the way of legible posts. But the lead story is, I know nothing of the location of the missing boat. If it was found, the owner didn't tell me, but I have the feeling that after a few days of no word and east wind it may be pretty far offshore or sunk at Tomales Point. In light of that, a suggestion: have a good anchor, chain and rope in your boat. It's your parking brake, and whenever you park at sea you're always on a hill. I think that this boat may have been tied to something, and that could be okay, but good old anchor is hard to beat. Humans have been anchoring boats since well before the Roman Empire, so maybe the technology is mature by now. Those anchors can also keep you and the boat from drifting into the surf or out of the bay, depending on your situation. Pretty good deal. It's always nice to find your boat where you left it....

     On the fishing report front, there's probably some herring in the bay but I haven't had a day off to go look and nobody is reporting anything, so... maybe? Crab has slowed a bit in the bay and more so outside. There's at least three commercial boats working gear in Bodega Bay proper, and when they show up there in the first ten ten days of their season it means the crabbing is slow and they're trying to conserve diesel. Inside Tomales Bay nobody is bragging, and it's not just false modesty. There's some crab, and people are catching, but it ain't limit crabbing. It's "you probably won't skunk" crabbing. Not good, but not the worst. 

     First up, there's a boat on the run. Last night an 18 foot Bayrunner aluminum boat was tied off near Lawson's and this morning it wasn't there. If you see a rando, empty aluminum boat on a beach or otherwise, please email me at lawsonslanding@gmail.com and I'll let the boat owner know. He, and his kids, and his grandkids, are really invested in recovering the boat. Lots of memories, and hopefully more to be made. 

     The crabbing has declined a bit, as it should, as usually January to March is the slowest time as the dreaded "clutch" usually happens about then. For those that don't remember, the clutch is when a boy carb really loves a girl crab and together they make fertilized eggs. That she takes care of. Nature is wise... But during that time, keeper Dungeness have different priorities than bait in your trap or hoop. Who hasn't skipped a meal for love? Also, there's usually a molt around that time, and if you think it would be difficult to eat with a rubber jaw, imagine how it would be if your bones were on the outside and you lost them for while. Even when they first firm up they're just pretty, hollow creatures. You probably know some. You wouldn't want to eat them, either. The crabbing should get a bit (or a lot) slower before it gets better, but it will improve before season's end, as those just short hollow crab fill out and harden up and fill in just in time for the season to close. Guys on the bay today were still catching, even the shore snare guys, but there were few braggers, either due to modesty or just less catching. Probably the latter. I hear that even the commercial guys are spending more time moving their gear than just running it (Running is pulling, taking out crabs. rebaiting, and dropping. Easy. Moving means pulling, coiling, stacking on the boat, unstacking, baiting, dropping. A lot more  hand moving pots. Hard.) A good start for some has turned into a search for crab. I guess a slow start for others just continues as a search for crab. Sounds like most of my crabbing.