Not quite as many surfperch for Gage today but they were still biting near Sand Point. Other people caught a few as well. The pier was still pretty good for Dungeness, as least for some of the crabbers. The weather was fantastic and if the ocean had been a little flatter I would have been itching for a rockfish run, but neither the weather nor the season was quite right.

Gage just wanted me to let everyone know that the surfperch aren't biting. At all. He didn't catch a quick limit in 90 minutes on the outgoing tide. And they absolutely wouldn't bite Berkley Power Sandworms. He did lose a striper, though.

    In case anyone was wondering, yes, the herring are spawning. These came from Richardson Bay this morning. They're about blue label sized if you are looking for bait and grilling sized if you are looking for some eating. I'm going to try both. Chances are they're spawning in Tomales Bay too, and who knows what else may be in the water with them? Considering all the fresh water in the bay, I'd think that chances would be as good as it gets for a striper or sturgeon to be around. I found a dead golden shiner minnow on the beach by the pier yesterday. When you find dead freshwater fish washing up on the beach, there's been a lot of rain.

Here's some video of the big surf this weekend which topped out at 26 feet. Good weekend to stay on the beach. The surf was not too high for the surfperch, though, which bit OK for the few guys that tried for them. If you go, the fish were biting near the sand point which (probably not coincidentally) also had smaller (and safer) breakers. Avoid wading on the oceanfront beach and don't even think about the rocks during swell like this. There are other ways to kill yourself that won't have people reading about your accident and commenting on your poor choices.

    Also, here's a video my son stumbled over on youtube of Scott from Auburn catching his largest halibut (so far):

    Notice to mariners: If you use Green Can 3 inside Tomales Bay for navigating (even though its location was apropos of nothing), you can't use it anymore. It is currently just over the bar in the mouth of the bay, about 200 yards Southeast of the TB buoy. The next low tide could send it on its way to 10 Mile. I guess it wouldn't be the strangest thing floating around out there right now. My cousin saw somebody's deck with railing float by his boat out in 50 fathoms (300 feet) a few days ago.

    Well I can't catch anything, so here's a picture of what some of the professional fishermen are catching by accident. Yes, I'm eating other people's discards, but I'll tell you what, that's some good tasting bycatch. These goofy-looking creatures are brown box crabs and they're closer related to king crab than Dungeness. Note that they only have eight legs (two of them clawed) instead of a Dungeness' ten. They taste good, too, especially to a guy that can't catch many Dungeness.

    Other people have been catching some Dungeness, although definitely not as many as earlier in the season. The pier is still pretty consistent in that there's a few Dungies taken every day. The area near the pier has been pretty good for kayakers and small boats, as well as the guys working the long surf rods with snares. There's still some Dungeness in other parts of the bay but with all the fresh water you really need to work the deeper holes. 

    Fishing has been slow except for some jacksmelt from the pier and surfperch off of the beach. There's herring in the bay to spawn which should mean that there's a few stripers back by Marshall but I haven't talked to anyone that's caught either a striper or a herring, so who knows? Guess I'll just eat box crab.