Here's the winners of the 4th Merle Lawson Memorial Salmon/Sea Bass Derby. In the middle is Kapulani Chong, who fished with Chris Hayes, the winner with a 23 pound salmon. Second place went to Cameron Vogler, who fished with Paul Boley, at 20.5 pounds. Third place went to Nathan Duby, who fished with me, with an 18 pound salmon. Merle always did well at derby time and it must have been genetic, as Nathan and Cameron are his grandson and great-grandson. All three fish were caught off of Abbott's Lagoon, trolling the bottom. Here's pictures of the fish and fishermen: 

R. L. Hartmann of Granite Bay caught this 29 pound lingcod at Point Reyes yesterday. While not a contender for this year's derby, next year's salmon derby may be a lingcod derby if the salmon season gets cut like people are expecting. The halibut catching was slow in the bay but a few were taken outside. The word might be out about white sea bass because there were about 50 boats drifting in front of McClure's yesterday morning. Maybe they were mooching for salmon? They weren't catching any salmon...