There's a few surfperch on the beach, and I heard of a few salmon out in 45 fathoms on Monday. Slow crabbing for the few that tried. The wind was pretty aggressive late in the week. The only thing that was good was the clamming, and that had plenty of unhappiness for some clammers. Fish and Wildlife wardens are definitely making themselves known in certain circles. One boat was confiscated by wardens after they witnessed the guys in the boat dumping two buckets of clams over the side. The clammers saw the wardens and didn't want the tickets. They still got ticketed (even an extra page) and lost the boat. The wardens are having such a productive time at the Landing that they are planning on being a regular fixture, at least until they can't find a violator. If you don't have it already, you better get religion and keep your nose clean or you'll be helping to pay the state's bills. Speaking of doing the right thing, it's probably also a good idea to be extra vigilant on the safety front while out on the water. Nine people have died on the water in the last six months between Bodega Head and Bird Rock. There's been easily three times as many people that were successfully rescued in that same time. Let's all be safe and legal out there and let the wardens and rescuers have a break.

Sorry about the lack of posts; it's partly a lack of anything to tell and partly because I was out of town. On the good news side, rockfish season is open and there's salmon biting out in about 250' of water. One was landed here today. It's not red hot, but salmon in April,  so who's complaining? On the bad news side, the weather has mostly been bad. Bad enough that you couldn't get there from here. Yesterday the swell was too big to get out from here but some boats tried for salmon from Bodega. One didn't make it back. The 21 foot boat ended up in pieces on the beach south of Bird. At the time of this writing, searchers had recovered only two of the four fishermen. Nobody knows what happened, but it may have involved the Trees reef break as it's definitely capable of bad things. There were several fatal boat accidents there in the sixties and seventies. Kind of early in the season for experienced salmon fishermen to be working that area, though. Without knowing any real information, the only real takeaway for the rest of us is to wait for a better day, make sure your electronics and your engine(s) are solid, and be cautious, especially early and late in the season. For the friends and families of those lost, our condolences,  and to the rest of you, be careful out there. Remember, it's supposed to be fun.

No salmon pictures from here for this weekend. I should post some pictures of kites or windsurfers. A couple of boats went of here out but didn't spend much time trying before they surfed back in. From the radio, a few boats had a couple of salmon but the action was sparse in the cold, churned-up water. Crabbing was pretty slow in the bay as well. I didn't hear of any leopard sharks caught, only a bat ray. I'm guessing that the leopards' fins were hard to spot in the chop. The surfperch did bite for the guys that didn't mind getting sand and salt blasted.