Cold, clear water and not too much bait made for some slow salmon fishing today. The halibut were still biting for  few guys, though. This 30 pounder bit a shiner near Hog Island for Jacob Montrose of Sacramento. The fish still had white spots, so they're still coming into the bay and shallows for the spawn. The anchovies, on the other hand, were moving out towards the outer bay, which could mean another good salmon bite there in the next few days if the wind would just lay off.

    The wind blew like crazy today which kept everyone off the water. Except for a few hours in the morning when a few people like Tom Treadway and his family darted out to the outer bay for some limits of really nice salmon. Why, even the guy who said "fishing is hard" yesterday stuck his head in the office to say "fishing is easy" today. I'm not sure what to believe, but I am pretty sure it will blow again tomorrow and that the water will be cooling off, possibly sending the schools of bait to wherever they disappear to after a blow with the salmon following them. It seems like there's quite a few fish around, though, so maybe a few stragglers will stick around. The halibut fishing was still good over the weekend. although the bait catching was difficult yesterday. Current thinking is that the anchovies do less eating when they're concerned with not getting eaten. Poor little fishies have been getting abused by bass and 'buts. It may not be a bad idea to have a lure or dead bait at the ready when the anchovies aren't biting because there's a good chance that something else is biting.

     Here's a picture from last week with the Carter clan's most fresh-faced fisherman, Ezra, somehow making some pretty good sized stripers look a little larger. I may need to borrow him if I catch a fish. 

    On Thursday, as I drifted with one just-legal fish in the box, I received this photo. "They're on the beach" said the text. Huh. I wasn't. No wonder.

    I also received this photo on Thursday.  It would have been nice if this text had included the information that the fish was caught in the outer bay. I like catching salmon in the outer bay. Now everybody else is out there catching my salmon. Salmon like...

    ....these salmon. The Alexander boys (and honorary member Larry Varela) laid into limits day before yesterday. Luke and Logan even caught their first salmon ever and their fish each weighed 20 pounds. When the fish are biting so well that the older Alexanders let the youngest ones catch fish, it's a pretty darn good bite.

    Teo Lally's grandpa, Ed Parsons, tried a few times this week to put Teo on the big fish. Luckily for Teo, Kapulani Chong stopped by and put them over the fish. According to Ed:"Teo got a 28 lber yesterday.  Landed it unassisted right up to the gaff.  He's coming right along for a 10 yr old.  Said he wants to be as good as Gage.  Sounds like we both have our hands full!"

     Sam Gracy of Napa caught this 27 pound salmon yesterday morning.

    These gentlemen used their kayaks to try a variety of spots for halibut but ended up catching both fish in the channel that runs past the pier. You could almost cast there...

   ...and these gentlemen did. Both halibut from the Sand Point, casting into the channel. I won't tell you their secret lures because they asked me not to and because you wouldn't believe it.

    If you heard a bunch of whooping and hollering yesterday evening at about 7:00 PM, that was Gage. He caught his limit of salmon trolling in 50 feet of water in front of Estero de San Antonio in about 90 minutes. Some of the rest of us took much longer to catch much less.

    Jake and Adam are not some of the rest of us. They wrestled these fish out of the weeds in the outer bay today.

     Some people go to the bar to drink. These people go there for halibut (and sometimes stripers). It looks like Tom Carter got his eyes back on the same side of his head and finally caught himself a halibut instead of a striper. He's still got his hand on his wife's fish, though.

    Vance Staplin has been working on this whaler for a few years and he's finally got it in the water to test it. I would say it passes. Ron Johnson may have helped.

     Tom and Jerrie Carter caught these fish yesterday. Not by Hog Island. I was going to crop Tom out of the photo but I wanted everyone to see the way he's got his hand on his wife's fish. Like we'd believe you caught it, Tom. Stick to your bass.

     Danny McDonald went fishing with Gage on Monday evening and caught this 10 pound halibut at sundown. That's the smile of a man's first halibut. 

   Gage thought he'd try noodling for halibut and this one bit his thumb, also at sundown. I guess his thumb must smell like anchovies.

    Alec Bennett caught this one on a dead drifted anchovy yesterday morning. It kinda looks like he was on the bar...

    Gage wasn't the only one fishing in the evening. This 25 pound halibut filled out my limit on the bar on Monday night. Small live anchovies with #8 treble hooks. Attention divers: There's halibut on the bar but you can't see them. Bring a white cane instead of a spear gun.

    These salmon came from out deeper but...

   ...it looks to me like these salmon came from closer to shore. The larger salmon weighed 20 pounds and the two larger halibut weighed 20 and 24 pounds. Nobody else did even half as well (Gage tried pretty hard) so I'm not calling the salmon "on the beach" officially, but I'll guess these were scouts for the rest of the school. Soon....What will we do while we wait?

    How about catch white seabass? Nancy Raggio sent in this photo and story from yesterday:"A fishing day to remember-

Here is the 40 inch white sea bass I caught yesterday in the bay! People say that catching a white sea bass is kind of rare here, so I feel extremely fortunate. I'm curious how many of this size are caught in our area?
Could not have landed it without my son Noah manning the net! 
Tore off at least 50 feet of line 3 times urgently trying to get back to the ocean.
Had no idea what it was but Noah just released a huge ray so as i was fighting it we compared  the action to that 15 minute fight - and it was similar but the ray did not race away fast toward the ocean and the surface like this big fish did! 
In between the runs I was able to gain on it pumping and reeling. 
She weighed in at a little under 20 pounds and bit on a dead fresh smelt.
I've caught salmon all my life,and they're always a thrill,  but this powerhouse fish beat them all as far as fighting fun.
We also both also limited on halibut...by the way. A day we will never forget!

Nancy Raggio"

   Nice job Nancy (and Noah). Don't catch the WSB bug (although it sounds like it may be too late for you). We're a little far North for consistent seabass catching, although I did hear a forecast calling for a return of The Blob, the warm water anomaly that screwed up our weather, abalone and crabbing a few years back but did gift us with WSB and bluefin. I mostly hope it doesn't happen but the devil on my shoulder keeps whispering "seabass..." 

    Also, there's halibut and stripers on the bar.

    Joey Petrilla caught a 20 pound salmon yesterday. Not as big as his 24 pound salmon from the day before but he seems kind of okay with it.

     Peter and Beth Honebein caught their limits of salmon yesterday. Guess who caught the big one? This one hit 20 pounds and all fish came from very near Point Reyes. 

     All of these salmon pictures would almost give a person the idea that the salmon bite is wide open. That would be quite a stretch. It appears that, with a break in the Northwest wind, the salmon and baitfish are transitioning from the deeper water towards the shore. If the real strong wind leaves us alone for long enough we should have something approaching wide open salmon bite right on the front porch (figuratively) by the end if the this coming week. Or, the wind could blow hard and push the salmon and bait back offshore. The forecast is leaning towards the second thing, but we can dream...

    ...And hey, if the wind does blow, at least there's halibut in the bay.

    Talk about a gentleman. Eddie Kim was kind enough to wait for me to leave the water yesterday before he started catching fish. We caught three legal halibut near Marshall in some blustery south wind. As soon as we left the water the wind quit and Mr. Kim started catching. That's a 21 pounder on the left and a 15.5 pounder on the right. Live anchovies and patience were the keys. 

    I'm told that these are called "salmon" and they taste good. These came from 240+ feet of water pretty close to Point Reyes. There have been a some caught off of Bird Rock in 200+ feet as well but the best bite was farther South. The South wind was back today with some even more aggressive gusts than yesterday but at least it started later. The weather forecast looks pretty good for this weekend. The water is still pretty cold and the fish a bit scattered but with a break from the North wind we should see the salmon group up and push in shallow soon.

    Joey Petrilla of Colfax caught this nice 24 pound salmon on an Apex off of Abbott's Lagoon today. 

   We had some sun, some dense fog, some high overcast, some calm and some wind over the weekend. The intrepid angler stays flexible and rolls with the conditions. Larry Rogers and family ended up trolling the bay, then drifting live bait after they found schools of baitfish that would open their mouths. The trolling only produced seaweed but the live jacksmelt caught halibut and stripers. A few boats went out for little while yesterday and one even caught a salmon before people started almost falling out of the boat. There's a few salmon around in 160 to 240 feet of water but not even close to enough fish for me to want to brave the conditions (20 to 30 knots with gusts to 35) in the next couple of days. Looks like it's supposed to drop by mid-week. I hope it's true. We need to thaw this iceberg that we call the ocean out enough for some bait and salmon to really cluster in the Bodega-Point Reyes bight. 

    The fish of Alaska are breathing (?) a collective sigh of relief. Gage is on his way back to California. California fish, be afraid....

     Eddie Kim had the best report from local waters yesterday:"Nice to get limits of Hali, rock, & cockles:)" There was one other limit of halibut from South of Hog Island yesterday (trolled) but only sadness, boredom and jellyfish for the salmon fishermen that didn't venture South of Point Reyes. 

    For those of you following along at home, Gage tells me he's having a good time in Alaska.

        A last few photos from the weekend:

    Here's the dinosaur photo. Not what you'd expect when trolling. 

     Travis and Maddy are showing off what they did expect to catch while trolling. Not too bad a haul for having to release the largest fish of the day.

    Here's the other fish in the bay.:"Couple of striper we hit on the 'ol' halibut troll" I guess trolling works.

    I'm told that the only thing better than a striper is two stripers. I wouldn't know firsthand but a guy I know does. The second fish bit while the first was still in the landing net. How's that for a quick limit.

    Not wanting to stick to one kind of fish, these gents caught one of each back by Hog.

    Travis Barton and his fishing associate picked up three halibut yesterday after giving the salmon a try in the morning. The salmon didn't bite for them but the flatfish made up for it. I heard that Travis may have caught and released a rarely seen Tomales Bay dinosaur today. Maybe he'll send me a picture.

    Eddie Kim's dad wanted to catch some rockfish yesterday, so away they went. The pile of fish would likely have been taller if the water had been flatter, but it appears that the elder Kim caught enough for a smile. After the rockfish came a much calmer halibut mission in the bay.

    I snuck out for two hours of fishing with my wife's uncle on Thursday and these guys were fishing near us. Here they are showing me the fish I was supposed to catch. Thanks, guys.

   Here's the fish we did catch. The 14 pounder had some weird black mottling on its white side. A taste test later confirmed that it was still good eating.

    Thumbs sent me this picture yesterday. No message with it, just the photo. I'm going to guess that the blue VK Dying Minnow behind a green prism dodger ripped the heart from this salmon yesterday. 

    Mark van Loben Sels sent over this picture of a young fisherman and his catch on Monday:"Andrew's first halibut. Between Hog and the yellow can and the other marker. Where it falls from 8 feet to 12. 2:45pm. No other bites. Lots of various size bait. We used the biggest ones we caught." Looks like it worked. Nice job Andrew and Mark.

    Monday was also a good day for these fishermen. I think that they were near the yellow weather buoy as well. 

    Yesterday we won't talk about, but today the halibut decided to bite again and these fisherpeople were on the water early to take advantage of the halibuts' newly opened mouths. I believe that live anchovies were involved, as well as a jig. Early morning has been the been the good time for catching as the water is warmer near Hog Island at the bottom of the tide and the wind is lighter.

    Here's a nice Saturday fish. "Dottie the FISH Slayer, Tomales Bay, Lawson's Landing. 

36 inch 18 lb. California Halibut." The ocean water wasn't very nice or fishy for most fishermen. I heard of a few salmon caught, mostly out deeper. 15 and 5 (38º15'' by 123º05') had a few fish in about 200 feet of water and there were some taken out in 300 feet of water as well. A couple of straggler salmon were caught off of the Trees but the schools of bait to concentrate the salmon are hard to find now. We need a few nice days but we aren't forecast to get any in the near future. The Dottie crew gave it a whirl out front but came back into the bay for this flatty.

    This halibut ate a bullhead cast out from the shore in front of the Boathouse yesterday. It weighed about 12 pounds. 

    Michael Del Gallego got a ride from Gage (when he finally woke up) for a quick trip towards Hog Island for a morning halibut. They missed a few other bites before the incoming cold water chilled the action.