Just a quick note today. With only a couple of people on the pier I guess the Dungeness lost their shyness and came in. Some very nice crab taken on the pier this morning.

Too much wind on Thursday through Saturday for any salmon fishing but there were some perch caught in the surf and quite a few clams got chowdered. The pier crabbing was slow. No word on leopard shark. More wind forecast for this week. So, in light of a lack of anything to report, here's a link to a story (with pictures!) of an octopus eating a gull: http://www.birdfellow.com/journal/2012/04/27/who%E2%80%99s_up_for_lunch_a_gull_eating_octopus_in_victoria_bc  At least someone is catching.

The following is a post from my mother's Facebook wall. The poster used to fish with my grandfather, Merle. He's a better writer than I. Here it is.:


I was dreading this news. I had a feeling that your Dad would not last long. To say that he was a great man is an understatement. He was truly a Gift From God. He was a throwback to the "Lifeboat Men" that protected our waters before there was a Coat Guard. He found a way to preserve a beautiful stretch of coastline while at the same time sharing it with thousands of people every week. He shared his boating skills and love of salmon fishing (the only fish worthy of catching). Anyone that spent a few days around him learned that that gruff exterior was only a show and that the true Merle was a very caring man and had a heart of gold.


I learned many lessons from him. Don't cross the bar if it is breaking all the way across. It will be too rough to fish anyway.


Fish with a very light drag. If you need more pressure lift up with your thumb and let your nail touch the line.


A fish is not ready to boat until it has turned belly up.


Don't you dare touch a child's pole if he has hooked a fish.


If you are in your own boat you need to head home when Merle did or you would face a very wet and windy ride home.


Always run a green Apex on at least one rod.


When clamming and 80 year old man can kick the ass of a 35 year old.


If you get stuck on the bar it is better to wait it out than to face the embarrassment you will face at the boat house if you call for help.


Merle did not pass away. God just finally got him into the net. If God has a "brag board" like the landing has I am sure the Merle is the catch of the year.


Please keep us posted as far as a memorial service in California

This isn't a recent picture. In fact, that's me on the right and my brother, Tad, in front. I'm guessing that this is 1975 or 1976. The reason I'm posting this is for the man in the middle, my grandfather, Merle Lawson. Merle taught me my love of fishing even though I got seasick on his boat, the Tracer. I got seasick a lot. He must have been an excellent teacher. He and his brother Mike started Lawson's Landing in 1956. For the record, the camping was almost an afterthought, as the Landing is named so as a fishing port. Mike was killed in a tractor accident in 1986. Mike's wife, Dolores, died last month. Merle passed away on Monday night. Merle loved to show new people how to fish and how to love fishing. He also loved to tell people where the fish were. He would call the other boats in on his bite, even though too many boats would make the fish quit biting. (I won't do that. Ever. I'll tell you later.) That spirit is what this report is about. When I look at this picture, I'm still that kid in the photo. Thanks, grandpa.

The salmon were biting pretty good yesterday, and not too far out (160 to 200 feet of water), but that may all change by this weekend. The forecast calls for strong winds over the weekend, 20 to 30 knots, and that should churn everything up. It's kind of like shaking an Etch A Sketch. There was 55 degree water on the bar yesterday at high tide and the pelicans have been diving on bait in the inner and outer bay. Some of the bay water won't cool as much, so an early halibut bite could be a possibility. I finally went abbing yesterday for the first time this year and I'm happy to report no shortage of abalone. Pretty good visibility, too. It's always nice to choose your abalone before diving.

One salmon landed here today out of two boats trying. The boat without fish went through three trays of bait on shorties. I can't wait until July 6, when the size limit drops to 20". Until then, 24" is the rule. There is a large area of bait out off Tomales Point in 180 feet of water so the fish (such as they are) should hang around a little longer. Yesterday, according to one fisherman, the fish bit best at the turn of the tide. "I was hooking fish all day," he told me, "but when the tide turned everyone else started catching fish too." He finished the day with two 27" salmon.

The salmon fleet were working from Tomales Point to Elephant Rock in 160 to 220 feet of water. The fish were there but it wasn't red hot for most. Lots of bites and quite a few silvers and shorties in the mix, but the fish are there if you don't mind working for them a bit. Crabbing was slow to pretty good over the weekend, depending on who you talked to. The abalone divers reported decent numbers of abs.

It's pretty slow crabbing when Randy from Carson City spends a week here to catch only 27 Dungeness. He caught that many last year in one pull from the pier. Other people caught crab too, but not as many as Randy. I did hear about a group of divers that had 16 abalone this past week. I guess that means that there are still quite a few out there, even after the red tide. It also means that I should remind everyone that the limit is three abalone. No matter how many times you go diving during your stay, each person may still only have three abalone in possession, not three per day. Fish and Game have been here and written tickets for this specific law. There are a lot of rules regarding abalone and it pays to know them all.

Our first A.J. photo of the year, as well as the first salmon photo. They're out there but they aren't easy to catch, yet. Soon...

I polled five boats that ran out of Lawson's. Two had a salmon apiece, two lost a salmon apiece, and one had no takers. The bites came around 270-280' of water off of Bird Rock and points South. The crabbing outside was spotty. The pier and the bay had a few Dungeness caught.

Tal Roseberry just passed by on the way to the haul out ramp with three limits of salmon.

The forecast for tomorrow is excellent. Hopefully the fish will be there. Tempbreak.com shows a pretty uniform mix of cold water out there, so it's a little hard to gauge the good spots, especially after all the wind we've had. Earlier I was told about good salmon sign just inside of Cordell Banks, but that's kind of far for searching. Historically the Bodega Weather Buoy is a good place to start. And don't forget to troll around any black, slimy string of commercial crab pots, as those tend to hold fish (don't troll too close, though, because then they tend to hold your gear). It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to bring along a few crab pots, just to cover your bases. The outer bay still had a few crab a couple weeks ago and the big seas last week may have shifted a few more our way.

I've had a few questions about the leopard sharks, so here is a map of where they have been sighted. I did my  fishing for them right at the top of the area, but that's not to say that the fishing is best there, only that I'm too lazy to walk more than I have to. When it's calm and they are active you can see fins poking out of the water all the way down to Tom's Point.

They're catching crabs on the pier but more reds than Dungeness by a five to one margin or better. There are barred or calico perch in the surf (I've heard of both) but they're running kind of small. No word to me of any of those leopard sharks at Tom's Point either caught or seen again. It's the first day of ab season today, so of course the sea is running 19 to 25 feet high. It is so big that no one is even thinking about going, not even the semi-suicidal guys. It is pretty to watch, though.