While I have yet to see a halibut here yet, I have heard of two being caught and another unintentionally released. Still a few dungeness crabs around, especially in the outer bay in front of Dillon Beach. Five weeks until rockfish opens and it is rumored that there is a new lower quota on blue rockfish. This means that the season is likely to close early, maybe even earlier than last year.
In national news, there is a possibility that an expensive federal permit may be required to operate your boat in the waters of the United States. Unless the Clean Boating Act of 2008 is passed soon recreational boat owners will need to pay for the same permits that ships need. For more information, go to http://www.boatblue.org/. This site has links to your elected officials to make it easy for you to encourage them to do the right thing. Please take a minute and help yourself continue boating.

Mike Nursement with a 10"+ abalone taken from Tomales Point. Exactly where on the point Mike won't say. Mike was diving, but many other people went rockpicking with the low tides and also did well. The swell was low, the air was warm and the water was clear this weekend. Clammers and crabbers all brought home dinner as well. Good thing we have some other things to try for besides salmon.

Congratulations to John Davis who celebrated his 60th birthdat last week and bagged his first limit of abalone this week. I guess John thought the regulations were too simple in the past. This years regs are complicated enough to finally interest him. The tide was -1.2' and John had his limit in about a half-hour of looking. There are some really low tides coming up this spring, down to -2.0, so even if you've never tried it before this could be the year to try rockpicking for abalone.

The gentleman from Reno finished his trip with nearly 20 dungeness but he left some crabs for the rest of us. I've seen six others come from the pier since late Sunday. Clamming continues, no big tides yet but clams coming in. Abalone season is here and they taste good. For those of you unaware, the regulations have changed again for this year and you now must tag each abalone as soon as it is removed from the water. The tags and punch card both need to be filled out at that time. A personal observation: bring a towel or an astronaut pen because regular pens don't work well when you are dripping on the paper. No swell today to speak of, clear water, one limit for me to 9" without having to go over 5' deep.