As submitted by Trip Plumb from his fishing/crabbing trip last Tuesday :" Beautiful day limits of crab and slow bite on rock cod. 5 pots with 3 hour soak north end 10 mile. "  Other people have been doing pretty well at the crabbing, too. Outside in the outer bay there are still a few pockets of Dungeness and a few guys are getting their limits. Inside Tomales Bay the crabbing has been okay (great if you want reds) with the same caveat about location. The deeper holes seem to be better but don't put any gear you want back in them if the current is moving very fast. The pier has actually been pretty good. Some of the crabbers have caught more keepers on the pier than the boaters (not just me). The biggest problem with the pier is the hungry sea lion. He has decided that he likes chicken as well as the mackerel and squid. A metal bait box is a must if using a ring net. While we don't encourage the sea lions to eat your bait, we don't discourage them either, since they are a protected species. Another protected species is the great white shark, and occasionally one will happen by and eliminate the bait thieves. This happened in October 1989:

     The man said "instant karma's gonna get you." Poor little spotty. 

      Binh Nguyen sent in this weekend report:"We went out on Saturday the 17th for easy limits of lingcods up to 15lbs for 4. Rockfish was biting. We got only a hand full of rockfish and 15 crabs." Nice fish. I guess I should have gone north on Sunday.

      Or maybe I should have just stayed inside the bay. Allen Evans sent in this:"Landed a limit of crabs inside the bay...awesome weather and the bay was flat"

     These guys went fishing and crabbing with me today. Four of us on the boat ended up with 28 rockfish, 10 lings and 3 Dungeness. Now I know where the Dungeness aren't. 90 feet of water in front of the Towers was not good for the Dungeness  (lots of reds if you want 'em) but 140 feet had plenty of  rockfish action for 2.5 hours we tried for them. The schoolies weren't that big but ten lings makes for a pretty decent pile of fillets. There were quite a few rockfish caught in front of Bird Rock this weekend, too. A couple of guys did well in the outer bay but mostly there were more reds than Dungeness. Lots more. The guys that stayed inside Tomales Bay did better on the crabs than I did. 

Found crab pot.

This arrived at the launch ramp today. It was hooked on a boat and dragged in from somewhere.  We are storing it in the shop for now. Show a license with a matching GOID number and you can have it back.

     Here's a photo and report from Binh Nguyen: "We got easy limits of lings and rockfish Saturday the 10th for 2.  Here is Ron with a couple monster lings in the mid twenties." He added that the " lings were caught off Timber Cove". Very nice fish, gentlemen. Looks like some nice Dungeness, too.

    Wow, two posts in a day! That's what happens when somebody catches a fish and sends me a picture. The Harvest Time crew limited out on rockfish and lings and caught better than half limits of Dungeness on a three hour soak, all at or near Elephant Rock today. They would have soaked the pots longer but they couldn't fish anymore. For the record, before anyone gets upset, the orange fish in the ice chest is a rosy rockfish (or a cousin), not a canary. They aren't jumping the gun. They are doing a lot of cleaning.

     There's new rockfish rules for next year, not final yet, but almost. Most notable is more depth for rockfishing, as well as keeping a canary per person. The new depth allowance is actually not the actual depth but a mapped line of waypoints, shown in the above map. You may fish on the landward side of the line. Good luck only catching one canary. Also coming up is lingcod goes back to a two fish limit, 22" minimum size, black rockfish drop to a limit of three, and bocaccio  has no separate limit anymore (not that you caught many before, but now you might). New abalone rules are coming as well. They're simple, we're losing April and November and there will be a limit of 12 abalone per year max instead of 18. There's still a max of 9 abalone per year from Marin ans Sonoma counties. You win some, you lose some.

     I hear that there's a few surfperch being caught now. The overcast days usually have the best bite, and its so cold you don't need to ice your catch. When you catch one you can warm your hands up just by holding your catch. The better part is warming your belly up with fried perch. The Dungeness crabbing inside Tomales Bay is actually holding up pretty well. It is still very possible to go without, but with a bit of luck and skill most crabbers are getting enough for dinner and a few are catching limits. One fellow working the pier caught ten Dungeness over the past weekend, so there's hope for the shore crabber as well. In the outer bay the reds outnumber the Dungeness by 5 to 1 on the South end. On the North side the traps outnumber the Dungeness....

     Woooo-hoooh!!!! The testing is in and Dungeness crabs (South of Salt Point and North of the Eureka jaws) are clean enough to eat the guts! All right, you butter-lovers, break out the french bread. Also, commercial crabbers can set their gear in front of Bodega Bay starting at 6:00 AM tomorrow. So, if you were having trouble catching Dungeness in ocean before, it ain't getting any better. At least a lot of the boats have already headed North for their opener.
    P.S. Still don't eat the red/rock crab guts. Both because you're not supposed to and also yuck.