For those abalone divers that haven't heard yet, here's the new regulations. For the rockpickers, it looks like you may need to find them fast or learn how to dive, since the best low tides are usually pretty early and the tide is coming in pretty quick by 8:00 AM. Since there's no shortage of abalone, I guess the lower limit will allow you to spend more time looking for larger ones while the theme from "Jaws" plays in your head. At least, that's how I do it. The crabbing is still slow in the bay and OK in the outer bay if you can get there. 

The California Department of Public Health has officially lifted the health advisory regarding clams, mussels, cockles, etc., in Tomales Bay. Crab was never affected but is still fine to eat, if you can catch them. The Dungeness are still tough to catch in the bay but I did overhear that a group staying here last weekend caught over thirty Dungeness, although my guess is they came from the outer, not inner, bay.

Yes, I know that these pictures aren't from here but the people are. Rob Ohnmacht  put the boat over this 32", 14.35 pound trout. For a trout, it's a pretty decent salmon. Big seas here for the next few days will make the surfing better than the fishing.

Brandon and Laurel Sanders of Roseville submitted this photo and report from last weekend:

Just wanted to share a report from crabbing over the weekend.

 

We dropped three pots between Marker 5 and Pita Beach for a good haul on Saturday.  They soaked for three 2-hour intervals using salmon heads/backs, squid and mackerel.  In the meantime we anchored up and caught a few on snares.  The dungeness showed up in the morning, and we kept four keeper males and threw back several females.  There were a lot of undersized dungeness coming up so that is good news for later in the season.  We continued to catch lots of big reds throughout the day.  We went back out on Sunday and ended up with two more keeper male dungeness with a few females thrown back.  It got pretty choppy so we called it around noon.  We accidentally kept a female red as you can see in the right side of the photo...oops.  All-in-all good times.

I tried for some herring on Sunday back by Marshall but I came home with nothing. Guess I should have gone crabbing.

The advisory to not eat sport caught bivalves from Tomales Bay is still in effect but the clams from the northernmost part of the bay have tested negative for the toxin. Last week Fish and Wildlife wrote up a couple of guys for eating limits of clams and then digging up separate limits. The fact that they didn't drop dead kind of indicated that the clams were probably OK. Even so, I'm going to wait a bit before I go clamming for my family. The Dungeness catching has been very slow in the bay and I haven't heard of a keeper from the pier for a few days. There's still a lot of reds across the bay and a few on the pier. The outer bay still has some decent pockets of Dungeness if you can find them and if you can safely get there. The ocean has been nice the last few days and the weather in general has been better than we usually get in the summer. Rain would be good, but if we can't have it then at least we get some great weather.

Today there is a large, fatality-inducing swell making a lot of surf and noise. Two Coast Guard 47 footers are out practicing in the surf and they look small on the faces of the waves. There's some Dungeness in the outer bay but you can't get there from here, today. Inside the bay the crabbing is fine if you want reds but painfully slow for Dungeness. The pier has had some reds but keeper Dungeness just haven't been showing.

The pier has had a very few crab for the very lucky and the very skilled. Randy, being both, caught crab every day of his stay but was only catching one to six Dungeness per day, three being the average. For us mere mortals it is very tough to get one. Even in the bay from a boat it's slow. This report came in from the Tomales Outlaw :"Marker 5 hole is dismal. 3 Dungeness on New Years Day for 2 soaks with a 5 pot string. Last of the incoming and beginning of the out going. Good number of reds though. This is the least amount of crab I have caught in 3 seasons out there. Next push of crab should come in sometime next month, if trends are similar to years past. Happy New Years Lawsons Gang." Not the happiest report, but it is true that more crab should be coming in, starting in February and really peaking around the end of the season if anything like the normal flow of things comes to pass. Rockfish is now closed until June 1. Sanddabs or squid, anyone? There's a few surfperch and conditions are right for stripers in the surf but I haven't heard of any. Conditions are also right for leopards in the shallows on the incoming tides. I'm off to stock up on tackle at my yearly tackle show. Any tips on gear I should stock in the store for next year?