So,  maybe just finding the bait isn't good enough. I guess the salmon need to find it, too. Catch numbers dropped yesterday, probably because I was out fishing. There was lots of bait from Bodega Head down to Point Reyes, much of it pushed into water too shallow to safely fish in. The esteros had a good bite on Wednesday, but that evening you could watch the birds follow the bait over the reef and out of the outer bay. There's still some bait and salmon there but, like everywhere else, you need to work for them. Ten Mile had a good bite in shallow, and there's still fish to be caught along the length of the beach, but there's a lot of water between them. We caught three salmon and lost three yesterday, and every bite was just offshore of birds working a bait ball in the shallows. It seemed to me that the fish were coming for the bait schools but there's too many to choose from.

     The bait schools in the shallows are so thick that the thresher sharks can't tell when they've run out of water. This shark was found on the beach "gasping" yesterday and was returned to deeper water. That would be fun on a surf rod, eh?

     Scott from Auburn sent in this picture of his day yesterday. "Picked these two up on Wednesday, on some nice “candy bar “ size jack smelts, out in front of your place. A 28 inch and 36 inch, it was beautiful out there!  Doesn’t get any fresher!" The halibut fishing in the bay has been pretty good, and for the divers that have been asking me about the bar, the answer is yes.