Joe Downing took advantage of the flat ocean today and ran to the Point Reyes reefs. He only got one bite but that bite was a 22 pound ling. If you're only going to catch one, make it a good one.

    Tim Nelson sent over this report from Sunday:"Caught these two on straight bait in the South Bay, Mike also caught a shaker halibut and a silver salmon." The north end of the bay has cold water and I couldn't find any bait in it yesterday. Two hours of looking around and then chumming for no bites or sign makes me think that the live baiting for halibut is over. Looks like Tim and Mike are still catching with the dead stuff, so do as they did if you go. 

    There's been a couple of barely-over-the-line crab test results, one from Fort Bragg area and one from Duxbury, while the retest from Bodega Head passed. What's it mean? For us sport guys, probably the season starts as planned with warning from CDPH to clean before cooking. For the commercial guys, their start should be on the 15th but could be delayed due to domoic acid and weight testing and whales. Whale entanglement is a huge issue for the commercial fishermen and will become an issue for us as well. Here's some tips to minimize your chances of being the guy that kills a whale:

BEST PRACTICES

• No excess lines should be floating at the surface. Floating line should only be between the main buoy and trailer.

• When changing set location across depths, adjust the length of trap lines by adjusting shots (i.e., measured length of line) to maintain taut vertical lines.

• Avoid setting gear in the vicinity of whales whenever possible.

• Communicate the locations of high whale activity with other fishermen.

• Maintain gear to ensure lines and buoys are in good working condition and will not break under natural conditions causing gear to become lost or irretrievable.

• All gear should be clearly marked consistent with applicable regulation.

• Use the minimum amount of scope required to compensate for tides, currents and weather.

• Remove all fishing gear by 11:59 pm on the last day of the season when gear is no longer allowed in the water.

   That first one there that says no floating line? That's a damn good rule. 

    Mason Lessard texted me this report just before 10:00 this morning:"Live report... north of Hog island channel marker, Tom Carter's drift ( I mean Jerry's ) lol ....caught on one of the two live jack smelt I managed to catch." I don't know how he finished the day but that's a good start. It is funny that sometimes it's harder to catch the bait than the halibut.  

    This 11 pound halibut also came from inside the bay today. I didn't get the specific location but I know this blue boat trolls around Marshall quite a bit. They also had a couple of barely keepers that they safely returned for next year. 

    Just so everyone is reminded, for the week before Dungeness season opens it is illegal to drop a crab trap in the water. It has been that way a couple of years now, but there may be a change coming for 2020. Should the California Fish and Game Commission agree to it, we may get a 12 hour pre-soak next year, meaning you could drop your pots at noon on the Friday before the opener and pull them at midnight (or even better, the next day). It is not official yet but from what I hear it may actually happen. 

     Here's the best fish of the weekend. Caught on Sunday, this 29 pound halibut was brought in by Jay Meeks of Valley Springs. I may be a bit late in reporting it, but I can tell you it was caught on the bar. It was also probably the only fish from the bar for the weekend as the water was calm but cold. Cold water doesn't completely stop halibut from biting, it just makes it very unlikely to catch. Plus, maybe when they're this big they're better insulated. 

    We had to do at least one more albacore trip, so Tuesday Nate let Alec Bennett and I catch a couple more than last time. Four for us and six for Nate. We fished within a few miles of 38º 28' by 123º 55', or about 45 miles from Tomales Point. The ride wasn't too bad but it definitely didn't feel like summer out there. It did feel like Dungeness season is coming. In an open boat you wear your cabin and I needed a few more layers of cabin. Inshore, there were a couple of salmon caught out in the deeper water but there's no sign of last year's "October surprise" near-the-beach-salmon-slaying happening again. At least the rockfish will still play with us.

      Here's a good halibut picture from Noah and Nancy Raggio: "Hi Willy. Mom and I went in search of Halibut on Tuesday of this week. Found several schools of anchovies but they were more interested in getting away from us then getting on the hook. Put some time in and caught smelt for the live well. Mom lowered a lively one down into the deep channel just south of the number 10 marker near the yellow buoy. This heavy, 33 inch beauty swallowed the smelt and proceeded to pull down hard on the rod. We had several other takedowns during the day but they somehow evaded our double hook set ups. What a great Halibut season this has been. Mom and I both agree that Tomales Bay is one of our favorite places on earth." Thanks for the report and thank you for confirming that the halibut are still biting. We've had very few boats going out which makes for very little to report. From what I hear the salmon is about as slow as it gets but I did see a bunch of birds and whales working a couple acres of bait at 38º 18' by 123º 08' in about 300 feet of water off of Bodega Head on my way in from tuna fishing. No confirmed salmon in there but that area has been fairly consistent for a few fish this year.
    Some of the domoic acid testing results are in and it's good and bad. So far the tests have occurred at Bodega Bay, Half Moon Bay, Monterey and Morro Bay. All of the crabs have been good except for two crabs from Bodega Head area. Point Reyes, Russian River and Salt Point had all good crab. The two "bad" crab were at 43 and 58 parts per million (30 ppm being the action level) so they're close to being okay. My guess is that we will open on time with a possible "clean before cook" order from the Health Department. Commercial season will probably open on the 15th but may have a "blackout" area around Bodega Head. It sounds like their season will close for sure on April 1st to minimize whale interaction with their crab gear so they will be pushing hard for the season to open on time. Of course, how full the crab are and what the buyers are willing to pay will could also set their opener back. So complicated. For sure, though, all of us "sporties" should be replacing our rotten cottons and making sure that our GOID numbers are still legible on our buoys.

Late update:

    These three guys wanted to let us all know that, yes, the halibut are biting. Not bad for a couple of hours' work. They didn't say where they went but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't far. It was around the bottom of the tide.

     The albacore tally for boats from Lawson's Landing yesterday was:

Nathan Porter     8
Ed Parsons         5
John Brezina      4
Willy Vogler      2

Yes, I stink. Nate caught 7 before I had a fish in the boat. Nate and I started at 38º 27' by 123º 45' and the other guys stopped shorter on jumpers. Last bite was at 38º 19' by 123º 39' in greenish water. Most bites were in 57º water near the 58º temp break. Mexican Flag was the top color by far. The ride out was bumpy but the ride back was nice. The forecast looks good for Friday/Saturday and the water is moving this way. If you go I wish you Nate's luck, not mine.

    A couple of days of grinding finally paid off for Helmuth Himmrich today. When you're having a good day to get one bite, Helmuth had two bites, one of which stuck. The salmon was in the one school of bait that he saw all day in 55 feet of water at Elephant.

    The halibut bite isn't red hot but there's a few being caught. Michael Del Gallego landed two at the turn of the low tide near the yellow weather buoy. I heard of a few others from the same general area. There's a weather window for albacore and it sounds like there's quite a few boats making the run out of Bodega Bay tomorrow. The weather doesn't look quite as good for Monday, so that's when I head out (I hope). Good luck to all that run and better luck to the guys that share numbers.

     These gents landed a mixed bag on Sunday:"3 limits on cod, 1 ling 1 salmon" I believe that the salmon came from in front of Bird Rock. There have been a few salmon caught there as well as at McClure's and Abbott's. By a few I mean very few, but any salmon this time of year is pretty good. 

    Eddie Kim caught this one yesterday:"Lost one at the boat then trolled for 6 hours before getting my last salmon of the year! " I hear that in October the salmon taste like pumpkin spice. I haven't heard of any halibut caught the last few days but there's still a couple of salmon swimming by out there (although BEWARE! There are some salmon inside that bay. Silvers. You don't want them.). The water should warm up a bit this week and let the anchovies school up and move back in. If the forecast comes true we should see better salmon numbers this weekend and maybe an albacore run Monday or Tuesday. No domoic acid test results yet.