Did I say "breezy" yesterday? I guess it was, between gusts. Guys tried for salmon today but got chased back in. Halibut divers speared a couple on the bar yesterday but the several divers that tried today could see far enough to know that the fish weren't there anymore. There were a few halibut caught in the bay and many clams died, but not much else to tell.

     With all the salmon, albacore and halibut talk the rockfish decided that they'd better start pulling their weight and bite today. It wasn't a red hot bite but the lings were friendly enough to keep it interesting. It sounds like the salmon bite below Point Reyes was great again today. I hope it's true that they're moving this way, since the forecast is shifting to, well, let's call it breezy. That can be a long way home against the breeze. Then again, if you stack all of your fish up forward you can smooth out the ride a bit. I'll have to think about this more...

    It sounds like the salmon bite south of Point Reyes is still going but things are slow for salmon in waters closer to here. Rockfishing remained slow today. I didn't get a halibut report from anyone today but I'm still betting it's your best bet for the gasoline. I did hear that Fort Bragg fishermen caught albacore today with numbers running from 0 to 22 fish. That sure sounds encouraging. Apparently the surf fishing is still going pretty well. I didn't go yesterday, so this report kind of hurts:
"

  Hi!
I caught this string of fish on Dillon Beach yesterday right around 6:00. All 4 fish were caught on 6" Gulp camo worms.

Striper was 25", two 14" red tail perch and one 11" barred perch.

Happy fishing!

Cheers!"

   It's weird when Gage sends me fish pictures with other people in them, but it is starting to seem like when he does, the person is Sam and he's holding a striper. This one weighed 11.5 pounds and Gage didn't get a chance to cast for it. There were a few halibut caught back by Hog Island today. Here's a couple guys that know a little about it:

    Tony Mathis of Jackson and Kenny Mendoza of Plymouth caught these three halibut to 15 pounds and lost one other while drifting live shiners by Hog. They said the fish are in, and I believe them.

      Here's a report sent in by a friend: "

Rumor has it , a group of the Lawson Landing fishing team did a little salmon fishing out the gate today to practice up for the second week of July at the Landing ! Seems they found a bunch of fish, not to far south of Point Reyes. The massive school has been moving north a few miles each day, for the last month !all the fish seam to like the 275 foot line of water ! Five familiar faces got 10 salmon today!"
 The Harvest Time came home with a salmon from the near the same area (about a 27 mile run from here) and they said they saw quite a few being caught. They're coming closer. I also heard of a nice salmon caught mooching(!) in 80 feet of water(!) off of Elephant. There have been some other salmon caught up north off of Fort Ross but from the radio reports it didn't sound wide open. The rockfish aren't biting too well either, but that shouldn't last.

   Gage tells me that the halibut are biting pretty good by Hog Island. There were several caught around him and he and Nick gaffed a halibut for a kayaker. During slack tide there was a steady drumbeat of halibut tails in surrounding boats. That 61º to 68º water and the schools of anchovies must be having a positive effect. Outside there's a few salmon being caught, mostly out it 230-250 feet of water. There's a lot of krill (depth varies a bit) and that's where the salmon should be. It's not as good as the fishing further south but there is a fair chance of coming home with one. On the beach the surfperch are thick enough to snag 'em on striper gear, and I heard a rumor of a few stripers being caught on the beach yesterday. Not by me, I'm a perch snagger. The Dungeness season is ending not with a bang but more like a whimper. It is very, very slow for most of the crabbers.

   Gage thought that he was the man last night when he caught three nice surfperch. Then he glanced over at Sam Morita...

    The Gage is humbled. You can't see Sam's grin for the striper, but it's there. Then he let the striper go. What a gentleman. Gage cast like mad after the released fish but it still wouldn't touch his gear.

   One halibut report from yesterday from the Outlaw 

"Confirming one 30" halibut taken south of Hog this morning. Frozen mackerel of all things"

    Gage sent me photos of his successful morning surfperch mission. Looks like the camo Berkley Gulp! Power Sandworm was working for the barred perch and Gage's thumb was the killer for the redtail. He was fishing straight out from the entrance gate at Lawson's. No stripers, but a nice morning on the beach.

    Russ Meyer on the Explorer caught this 17 pound halibut south of Hog Island today. He overheard a few kayakers talking about another couple of fish being caught in the same area today.

     These gentlemen are standing by a 28 pound halibut that was also caught near Hog. Mason Lessard was the captain of this voyage. Previous to these halibut today I hadn't heard of very many, but maybe the warm weather has them biting. About time....

     The wind is keeping most of the boats ashore but the surfperch have come in to play, so at least there's some fishing. The perch are scattered up and down Dillon Beach and are hitting the Berkley Power Sandworms and fresh caught sand crabs.

    This fellow and his friend braved the wind today to catch these perch. I'm not sure what kind of voodoo they were using to get their lines out into the gale, but it worked. The weather was better yesterday and some rockfish hit the decks but I didn't hear about any salmon. The crabbing got even slower this week. The best bit of news I heard was that a commercial crab fisherman pulling gear off of Morro Bay heard some skip over the radio of a boat catching albacore. If true, it would seem to indicate that the theory of a post-El Niño reset on the albacore is real. We could actually have albies here in August. I may even feel well enough to try for them myself, by then. The worst bit of news I've heard is that, due to the recent warm water years a disease killed off all of the starfish which allowed the urchins to overpopulate and graze the coast bare. The abalone are starving to death in such numbers that we are almost sure to have no season for several years if we are lucky. I like the albacore story better.

     

    On his eighth trip out, Nick finally got his fish and got on the bragging board. At 20 pounds it's the largest weighed in here so far this year. It bit a live bait near Hog Island this morning. 

    If you want surfperch you should come out. It appears that a sandcrab molt is in progress, especially among the tiny ones. Thousands of 1/4"-3/8" sandcrab bodies line the beach and the perch are eating them. The one in the picture ate a Daiwa SP Minnow. There's a few baitfish around near the beach as well, so there's got to be a few stripers in the mix. Gage and I gave it a shot last night but all we got was sore shoulders. The full moon is next week, though, so get your casting arms in shape.