While there were a couple salmon caught in 40 to 60 feet of water yesterday, the best bite is still out in the deep (220 to 280 feet of water) off of Bodega Head. I heard of a few keepers caught less than 100 feet down but the vast majority were hooked 100 to 200 feet down. The silvers were shallower than the kings for the most part but could still be caught on the bottom, so don't think that you can escape them by going deep. For those that didn't want to play in the deep (or didn't like the weather outside; it was bit bumpy) the halibut were still biting in the bay.

  Mitch Hamilton sent in this photo and report:"Had a good day back by hog island. Jumbo jacksmelt did the trick. Son in law Brandon and grandson Travis both scored as well." A lot of people think that big jacksmelt won't work for halibut, but like Mitch, I've found that they'll try to eat them. It's often hard to hook the halibut using a big bait, but maybe Mitch will tell us his method, because it looks like he was hooking up pretty well. Nicely done, sir.

    Mike Brunkherst of Auburn caught these yesterday, the larger one weighing 29 pounds. Live bait does catch a lot of halibut, but these two ate drifted dead bait on the northwest side of Hog.

    This 21 pound halibut was caught near Marker 5 by Jeremy Nichol of Auburn today. It bit the only live jacksmelt they had for bait. Catching bait has gotten a bit difficult lately, which may account for some of the fish caught  on frozen bait. Determination, moderate currents and chum will usually pay off for the liveys. Mostly chum.

    So now I'm looking for the answer to a deep question: Which side of a halibut should you show when taking your picture? Dark colors are slimming, right? And we want our fish to look as large as possible. So in your opinion, is this 33.5 pounder larger.....

     ....or is this one larger? Jerrie Carter was kind enough to catch a big fish to model for this debate. She caught this one today on a live jacksmelt. Jerrie likes the look of the brown side, but I think the white side looks more impressive.  Comments? Polite comments, I mean?