The boys and I were working out on the seawall area today and saw a first. A seagull somehow, while trying to eat a crab in the shallow water near the beach, ended up with the crab stuck to its chest. Two hours later, there was the seagull, still with crab attached. The bird almost looked embarrassed. When the crab finally fell off the seagull didn't even try to eat to eat it. He looked happy and flew away. Probably the mocking he received from the seawall crew may have hastened his departure. I've seen the gulls eat a lot of little crabs. I have never seen one wear one until today.

     The crabbing has been slow. Beach snare throwers are getting a few (well, at least a few of them are getting a few) and bay boaters are getting a few more, but by and large the crabbing is not good. A few guys are getting them down at Ten Mile and a few less are doing okay in the outer bay. As the season progresses the places without crab are growing and the good spots are shrinking. Things don't look too good for the commercial guys, who won't have buyers until the new year, it seems. At this point in a disappointing season they have to hope that they get to go fishing soon. 

    I hope everybody had a good Christmas (or whatever winter solstice celebrating holiday you may recognize) and I wish us all a much better and happier 2021. May it be no worse. 

     Similar story on crabbing; slow in the bay, a little better outside. Shore snarers had a few keepers yesterday but not any full buckets. The commercial guys won't be dropping gear until after Christmas due to no buyers until then. Conditions seem good for surfperch but I haven't heard any reports. Herring reports from SF bay are that they haven't started spawning yet, so they likely haven't started here, either. More waiting, I guess. But, while we're waiting, wrybread has another picture show for us: 

    It looks like the herring are moving in to spawn. This school entered the bay a couple days back but is probably a week or better away from spawning. Herring are notoriously lockjawed pre-spawn, but once they start letting loose they're very catchable. There way be some critters that eat herring following them. 

 

 

    Rushing in for a couple days and then rushing back out before we did the shutdown boogie was, of course, Eddie Kim and family: "Ended up getting 42 Dungeness and 23 rockcod. Can't complain :)" There would be no sympathy if you did. The weather was good enough to head out of the bay for only part of one day, so these are some very good numbers. Inside the bay, Mr. Kim worked gear between Tom's Point and Sand Point. When I say that, I'm not being coy; he moved around the whole time and covered all of the channels (except the one behind Clam Island), some of them twice. Nobody else that I spoke with has done nearly as well, and the big tides the last few days have been bad for catching crab but good for selling gear. Those ripping outgoing tides are great for dragging light gear out of the bay and burying heavy gear under sand dunes. Clam tides and crab tides are different.

     The commercial crabbers get to drop their gear in another week or so. Northern waters get to drop pots on December 20 at 8:01 AM and the rest of the state gets to splash gear at 6:01 AM on the 22nd. The meager crabbing will not improve following the splashing. Commercial effort is likely to be high for the first week or so and then fade away, sort of like the crabbing (To be fair the crab, as a friend of mine once said, "started off slow and kind of tapered off from there."). More knowledgeable people tell me that Dungeness tend to run in a boom and bust cycle on about a six year cycle (about the time it takes to be commercial legal). It appears that we are approaching the bottom of the cycle (next year looks bad. Not many reported "clickers"). It is not surprising to note that if a certain year class has more adults then they will generate more babies. Why favor one year? It could be an ocean cycle of currents or temperatures, but my favorite theory is that it celebrates the anniversary of large, industrial-scale fishing of hake (Pacific whiting) which eat a lot of larval crab. It used to be that you could hardly escape the hake when salmon fishing, but now some people have never seen them before (lucky bastards). It is theoretically possible that suddenly removing a sizable portion of a predatory group will result in a similar increase in the number of the predated-upon species. So, next time you go through the drive-thru at McDonalds you should order the Filet-O-Fish; the crab you save could be your own.

    

    While the crabbing and fishing have not been that good for most, there's reason for hope. Richard Baratta had a very good day on Saturday: "Hey Willy

Just wanted to let you know we crossed the bar safely today,   but You  won’t see it on YouTube. Headed south with two friends,  all creatures have moved, used that new app you told me about on the I phone and finally found them. We felt very lucky since the radio traffic was discouraging. Thanks again for all your valuable advice and Reports ( treasure maps )" Nice piles of dead critters, Richard. Two things: One, Richard dropped his  crab gear in a spot and checked it after two hours. No crab. He moved deeper and found them. Lesson for us all: Don't leave your pots where there aren't any crab. Run and gun until you locate them. Two, the secret app is Google Earth or Google Maps with the satellite layer on. Before the state created the MPAs they performed a huge coastal survey of the ocean bottom so that they'd know the best places to close habitat value of the areas in question. Your dollars paid for it so you might as well use it. Other than Richard, most people had a hard time getting as many Dungeness as they wanted (who has?) but most crabbers got a few and it seemed like everybody was having a good time in some great weather for December (or actually, great weather for any time of year around this windy place). We're going to try to stay open for day visitors as long as the weather holds and enough people come out to make it worth it. Bring your own food and beer as we will be unable to sell food, drink or alcohol after noon Tuesday. But we can sell bait! Don't eat the squid.

   For those of you that are unable to get out boating on the ocean in the near future, here's a couple good reasons to not miss it as much:

https://gcaptain.com/one-apus-returning-to-japan-after-losing-record-number-of-containers/#:~:text=The%20ONE%20Apus%20is%20a,and%20crew%20safely%20to%20port.

https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2020/dec/2/cargo-vessel-loses-six-large-shipping-containers-o/

   The first story is about 1816 lost shipping containers in the middle of the Pacific. Those probably won't come near here. Probably. The second story is of six containers lost off of Eureka. Those are almost surely headed this way. I'm pretty sure hitting one would be bad. Robert Redford said so. Something to think about while running in the dark, though.

   Also, if you haven't read the book "The Devil's Teeth", you should. It's got great white sharks, shark researchers, the Farallones and their history, a bit of a love story, everything you need. The shark taggers and researchers need a bit of a financial bump, it seems. If you're fan of shark week or just interested in white sharks in general, these guys could use a little financial help:

 

    So here's video of a good way to cross the Tomales Bay bar if you are tired of living. The fact that it worked for these guys is no way an endorsement. Luck is something that's difficult to copy. The proper way? When it is breaking, don't go. A hard landing can kill the engine. Then what do you do? Swim, if you're lucky. Have you seen the crab pots on the bar? Get one of those in the wheel while you're trying to cross. I find it unlikely that these guys didn't break bones or the boat. Thanks Wrybread for posting this.

   The Dungeness crabbing in the bay is slow. I guess it's just as well that we're shutting down for a few weeks for a Covid-19 holiday. As of Tuesday noon we are closed for camping until at least January 4th. Day use will continue until the weather changes but we are unable to sell beer, food or drink. While the crab might be happy for the break, my opinion may differ, but at least this is the slow season. If you're gonna hurt me I'd rather you do it when it doesn't hurt much, so thanks. Now I gotta go hoard some toilet paper.

   Gage's two evenings of bat ray fishing from the mud flats south of the sea wall resulted in the total catch of one short Dungeness, one keeper Dungeness, and this thornback. I'm not going to say who caught the only fish, but it wasn't Gage. The few critters that bit were tasting squid before they felt the bite of the hook. Gage also gave a try yesterday for rockfish out in front of Bird but would rather not talk about that either. It's a bit slow.

   Today's report, "Hi Willy,

Crabbing wasn’t so hot for us today but we were surprised by this Mola, beautiful weather and a huge Bull Elk that came close to the water. Gotta love Tomales Bay!!!
Take care,

The Forchini’s" That is an odd place to meet a mola. I passed you today in my Whaler on my lap around the clam islands (testing the boat) and saw your boat on the beach. In my short run I was surprised by the lack of crab pots north of Marker 5 (Not that there wasn't any, there were. Just not insanity levels of them) and the crazy number of buoys floating right in front of the Landing. Is all the gear there because the crabbing is better or because it's close? I would bet the distance thing except that I have heard that a few guys have been catching there, not many crab, but dinner. 

     As far as for next and future seasons of crabbing, it appears that the season opener will be dependent on whale and leatherback turtle numbers in the area. Those numbers need to be close to zero. So, your fun and the commercial guys' house payments are dependent upon endangered species remaining endangered. I love the whales, and seeing a sea turtle around here is like seeing a dinosaur in real life. I'm a huge fan of both. I just wish that a better way to protect them could be worked out. Pitting people's vocations or even their avocations against three species trying to recover from the brink of extinction seems like there may be problems. A single leatherback turtle with a rope on it will shut down the season. Do you think there's maybe an incentive to make sure none are found? Just saying. I read Freakonomics and now I try to consider what the real incentives are behind the rules, intended or unintended. It's those unintended incentives that can really bite you in the tookus. 
 

    Mitch Hamilton sent in this picture with the note, "Managed to scrape up 16 out of the bay today, spotted a whale south of hog island as well. Good day with the kids and grandkids " You were definitely doing some serious scraping to catch 16 Dungeness inside the bay, Mitch. Others are catching too, but not too many. There were a few snare fisherpersons claiming four to six Dungeness from the shore this week, but my impression is that most shore crabbers were doing well to get a couple of legal reds. The successful ones I spoke to liked squid for bait, even though we seem to be selling a lot of anchovies to the snarers. Maybe a smorgasborg is in order. Outside the bay has been marginally better but there's still a lot more bad spots than good ones. When in doubt, go deeper. And north. There have been a few nice batches of crab caught off of the Towers on Ten Mile but there's also been empty pots. Again, deeper was better, but avoid 140 to 170 feet of water there as that's better rockfishing than Dungeness crabbing. It's also one of my favorite rockfish spots, so don't fish there, either. Of course, I kid, sort of. The rockfishing has been mostly slow since the big swells rolled through, but a few guys have done well at it, so my guess is the fish are scattered in shallower and hopefully more bitey out deeper where the swells wouldn't reach them. 

    The slowish Dungeness crabbing should continue for a few more weeks as the commercial season has been delayed for whales yet again. They might get to open in mid-December, depending on the whales. Whales in Tomales Bay and pelicans still flying around probably don't bode well for the commercials. Well, next year we get to feel their pain. 

 

     Some of the guys that went to Ten Mile did really well on the Dungeness today, so maybe there's more out there than I'm being told. Or, these guys are lucky, or better crabbers, or both. Either way, they caught limits of Dungies down there. Another fellow told me that he caught two limits of Dungeness in the outer bay. It only took him three days to do it.  That's about on par with inside the bay. That said, on boat yesterday ended up with 12 Dungeness for several pots on Ten Mile, so the big beach is still far from guaranteed success. 

Got this email this afternoon: "Hey Willy

Thank you for the informative post on the 12th, I followed your clues Friday and Had a successful day With a friend.

Richard" My clues didn't look as good as your pile of dead critters, Richard. My bugs were surely not as large. Nicely done, sir.

   Gage sent me this picture and note: "High Times Fishing, a frequent on the fishing report, had squid eggs on his traps in the channel across from the store" So, squid definitely enter the bay. They will spawn in the bay, although perhaps not in great numbers. I don't think this makes the area across the bay a squid spawn zone and therefore a place to reliably catch white sea bass (although I have caught them there...), or does it...? One female squid appears to carry two of these egg sacs, so for sure it looks like there were at least four female squid present. I'd get more excited except for the (recently warmed up to) 52ºF water temp. That seems too cold for white seabass or squid. Except, you know, squid were here. Maybe they don't know it's too cold? Do the seabass know? I'm pretty sure that I don't know.

    The crabbing story remains close to the same with a few in the bay, a few more outside the bay, and reasonably good first pulls from Carmet north. There's a good chance that the wind turning the water over may have chased the whales away which will possibly allow the commercial season to start in December. That will not make the crabbing any better. The low crab count coupled with a low price for crab will probably not make for many happy crabbers in the commercial ranks, either. At least we do it for fun.

     As the Dungeness crabbing continues to be kind of meh talk has apparently turned to rockfish: "For the comment board, any suggestions best area for rock fish in Tomales Bay area during Nov/Dec?

Thank you,

Jon M."  I'm not giving out any waypoints, but the following picture shows some good general areas. The red circled spots are pretty popular and the yellow, less so. Google Earth shows a lot of secrets. The further you go from the mouth of the bay the better the fishing, usually. 

     The crabbing continues more or less as it has, kinda slow for most. The outer bay started slow and kind of eased off from there, even though a couple guys today limited out there and a few more barely got any. Ten Mile isn't much better. North of Bodega Bay the crabbing is pretty good in the right spots. TIP: This goes for anywhere you're dropping your gear. If you are serious about crab then drop your pots in as many spots as you have gear for. Spread them out. The go back and start pulling them. Any pot that's empty goes back on the boat. Any pot with crab gets to stay. At the end of pulling, put your pots on the boat around your trap with the most crab. No crab in any pot? Start over. If the crab are there it doesn't take long for them to get in the trap. If they aren't there you need to move your gear. 1st absolute rule of crabbing: You won't catch crab where there are no crab. If you want to just drop your gear and hope for the best, cool; just don't expect a bunch of full pots this year. Sometimes crabbing is like fishing and you have to work for them. This is one of those times.

     Gage and I ended up with two limits of Dungeness, 18 rockfish and two lings. The crabbing was about as expected, kinda spotty. We dropped seven pots over a wide area to get an idea of where the crab are(n't). The results after three hours:

Towers 60 feet: 7 Dungeness

Halfway between Towers and Abbott's 60 feet: 5 Dungeness

Abbott's 60 feet: 1 red crab

Halfway between Abbott's and Kehoe 50 feet: 1 Dungeness 1 red

Kehoe 55 feet: 2 Dungeness 1 red

Two pots in outer bay, 55 feet: 12 Dungeness between them.

      The best grade of crab was at the Towers with four jumbos. Our pots in the outer bay were in the midst of a lot of other gear and I can't imagine there being many crab around there for too much longer. The rockfish bit kind of slow and there weren't as many on the meter as I usually see. Both Gage and I hooked into large lings that didn't stick. That's okay though, because the couple of lings we did catch were clearly getting ready to make more lings. It looks like the south wind is coming up tomorrow and a north swell on Saturday but Monday looks good so far.

 

     So the crabbing is slow, but nobody is trying for halibut. Well, not nobody: "Scott and Sharon Heiser from Sheridan, Greg Murphy from Calistoga with a 16 lb halibut on a tube jig. First ever" Nice fish, and especially so when nobody else is catching. I said the crabbing is slow, but one boat I spoke with yesterday had caught 51 Dungeness inside the bay in two days. The crew said they worked their butts off for them (It sounds like they almost traded chicken for crab on a pound-for-pound basis) but a lot of guys worked pretty hard to get one or two in the bay, so my pity is small. You could easily find 100 crabbers that didn't have 51 Dungeness between them during that time span. But someone did. Outside of the bay a few guys did well but most did not. Had one report from today from a guy working Ten Mile for a grand total of four Dungeness and two reds. He tried a number of places. It sounds kinda sucky for crabbing. I'm going to give it a try tomorrow but I'm not a good crabber. I need a target-rich environment and it sounds like I'm not going to get it. Go rockcod!
 

    Normally I wouldn't put pictures of fatalities on here, but this weekend we only had one and it was a Dodge. There were quite a few people trying to die in some abysmal weather but they were lucky. At least Herman and Rokefin were able to walk away from this one. With the wind gusting up over 30 knots the dispatchers sent 24 fire crews but a couple of tractors, a water truck and a bit of shovel work got the brush fire out before it got real exciting. If only the crabbing was as interesting. At least we get some calmer weather this week and with it some better crab reports.

    Our Friendly Commercial Fisherman sent a note about crab trap line: "Not only will unweighted yellow ropes result in lost pots, but instead of cutting the rope props can get bound up and cause the boat to drift helplessly into bad situations.  Every crab rope should have a line weight about 20’ from the float, long ropes need another lower down. The line weights are made to have the rope run through them, and the weight hit with a hammer to make it stick in place.  But i’s easy to use a short strand of rope to attach a weight, just splice it about 4 times, run it through the weight, and splice on the other side. Let’s keep it safe and also present ghost pots" In a pinch I've used monofilament to tie a sinker on the rope, or wire. Anything to sink that line. We call the floating rope gear near the mouth of the bay "murder pots" as winding one up on your prop while trying to cross the bar on an intermittent break will result in death. 

 

    The Point Reyes waverider buoy peaked at 20 feet every 14 seconds this morning, and while the Bodega Buoy never got much over 17 feet, I think it was a good day to stay off the ocean. I heard of one guy that jumped the bar and crabbed the outer bay for a grand total of six Dungeness. Inside Tomales Bay numbers I heard ran from zero (there were quite a few zeros) to 31. The hot spots? I don't think there were any. For every story I heard of a place with some crab there were three more stories of guys in the same place catching nothing. One fellow dropped a trap by Marker 5 and pulled seven Dungeness out of it an hour later, while another guy ran six traps in the same area for a grand total catch of a few reds. There was a lot of gear that went missing which I would usually blame on the current but there wasn't much of that today. It sounds like a lot of buoys got cut off by props, even on weighted lines. A sinking rope makes for a smaller target but doesn't guarantee someone can't hit it. It does make you wonder how the guy with a hundred feet of floating yellow rope ever gets his trap back. Quick answer: Often he doesn't. 

    Commercial Dungeness season has been pushed back until at least December 1st due to whales. While this gives the rest of us more of a chance to load up on crab in November it also means that, 1.) people that are hurting financially from the Covid closures get hurt some more (Restaurants closed; prices for fish dropped) and 2.) starting next year we get to suck it too, if the whales don't leave on schedule. While on some level I appreciate the communal sucking as something we can share and experience together, on another level I wonder why why should all be punished for the rebound of the whale. I, like any other seeing, feeling human, feel an enormous amount of awe and reverence at the sight of whales. The fact that our forebears hunted them to almost extinction is a stain on all of our souls. But, the fact that they have rebounded enough in numbers to find crab gear a danger is probably more of an indicator that their recovery is working than it is an indictment of our fishing techniques. I'm probably wrong (my wife says I usually am, at least when I argue with her) but I'm hoping that something that allows for everybody to coexist can get worked out. 

    This year, we sporties get to open early, though. And the weather kinda sucks. Tomales Bay should be doable tomorrow morning at least, but after that it gets really windy. The ocean will be bad. Up to 17 foot seas are predicted for the weekend. Getting out of Tomales Bay will close to impossible. People will try. My bet is that there's a 50:50 chance of a fatality tomorrow. We will try to discourage it. Cameron will be asking anyone planning on crossing the Tomales Bay bar to write their name in black marker on their body so that the Fire Department can identify their remains. For those of you planning on heading out, see Cam in the store. He has a pen for you. Barring that, stay in the bay. It turns out that crappy crabbing is better than dying. Who knew? If you can't wait for better weather, go to Bodega. You can still die in that kind of water from there but your area of demise can vary more. Or wait. We want to eat the crab, not feed them.

    Here's a last week report from Swampy: "Wanted to fill you in on the action from our three days there. Bait was plentiful with a few mackerel in the tank with the anchovies. Fished all day Tuesday for one missed bite, kinda on the slow side. Al caught the one fish on Wednesday but we added some rockfish heeding Gage and your advice, thanks. Just my son and I today for one butt apiece, a pretty good day. Think we missed two others. Had a great year and met a bunch of nice folks down there. Thanks for the memories, Swampy." There were a couple of other halibut caught this week but overall it was pretty slow. I heard of two on the bar and one out in 80 feet of water off of the Trees, caught while rockfishing. Rockfish have been pretty consistent which will be nice for something to do while crabbing. Not for the opener, though. So far Windy.com is calling for winds gusting to 40 knots and 12 foot seas on Saturday. This could change, of course, but at this time conditions look to be somewhere between subpar and fatal. Probably closer to the latter. And that's just inside the bay.

 

     Swampy heard my whining and came out for a visit. So far, one halibut. He's not picked up my habit of whining, nor should he, as one halibut is pretty good right now. I did hear of a couple on the bar a few days back, but this time of year any forays to the bar should be done with extreme trepidation, as we are in the season for sudden huge waves (Actually, the Tomales Bay bar is always ready for sudden huge waves, but even more so now). The rockfish bite has been a bit slowish which is not uncommon this time of year and especially not rare when the weather is this calm. Gage was able to knock out a limit of rockfish and lingcod today in front of Bird but the rockfish weren't quick to stick to the hooks. He limited on lings in 5 minutes, though. Apparently the large swimbaits from Pitbull work well. 

   Here's what's keeping your halibut and salmon safe from Eddie Kim. "Landed my biggest yet at 225lbs & 90lbs

Both caught on the Flat Fall" He is coming by tomorrow to drop off some pity bluefin to those of us that couldn't catch one on our trip. I'd be offended but then I wouldn't get any bluefin. So I'm shutting the heck up and accepting the pity fish. I'm pretty sure the pity will wash off with a little wasabi and soy sauce. Like the Temptations said, I ain't too proud to beg. 

     So I'm sitting here at home, lonely, with almost all my fishing connections gone. Eddie Kim has fallen into the long range crowd (The halibut and salmon are safe for now but bluefin are kinda screwed. San Diego has him now). I missed Swampy's week here. Even Mike Mack took a break. So the report is, not much is happening. There's a few halibut to be caught (more than if Eddie or Swampy were here) but not too many. Salmon exist out deep but only barely, with most catches being next year's fish and not many of them. There's stories of salmon in the Outer Bay but bedtime stories are generally for smaller people than those that read this blog. Things are slooooww. Dungeness for sport will open on schedule, it appears, for one last time this year on November 7. Next year, ? My suggestion? Get 'em while you can this year, 'cause next year's gonna suck. The whales are still here and next year we, like the commercials, operate on their schedule, not ours. Good times. 

   

     Here's a picture sent to me from Tom Carter on Sunday at 8:00 AM: "This 30 inch fat striper was just pulled out of the surf and caught on live blood worms," This is not the only striper caught on Dillon Beach this past week. There are a few (very few) nice stripers cruising the beach this fall.

   Scott Simpson sent over this report from last weekend: "Hi Willie, 

My son Derrick Simpson of Sacramento caught this 12# halibut Saturday 10/17 just north of hog. We were drifting over a 40 foot hole when it hit frozen herring. We were super excited because this was our 5th excursion in search of the elusive halibut. During the previous 4 attempts we hooked a ray and a shark, but couldn't  seem to find a halibut. We finally broke through and joined the halibut club.  Had a great time at Lawsons this week. " Glad you had a good time and glad you joined the halibut club. It'll get easier. The more you catch, the more you'll catch. Like any art, the more you practice it, the better you'll get. Starting off with a 12 pounder kinda starts you off down the road a bit. Nice fish, and nice job catching it.

    And then there's Swampy: "Hey Willy,

Sounds like y’all had a great trip with your boys. Loved the dorado video. Just a quick report from early last week. Three days fishing with my son, easy bait, nothing near 5. Hit the clam channel the last half day and ended up with two up to 12. Second one hand lined in due to faulty reel. May have one more trip in me this year.

Take Care, Swampy."  The fish are still there, Swampy. It ain't red hot, but there's fish to catch. Earlier this week the fish I heard about were on the outside edge of the bar. The past few days the swell has made that location harmful if not fatal. While I can't recommend the bar now, often the north part of the bay can be good when the bar has fish. There's lots of anchovies in the bay now and they're due to leave soon. They gotta go out the front when they go. The deep water  (275' or so) still has some salmon out off of the Head and I heard a rumor of some from the outer bay (off of Estero Americano) but it's all kinda sketchy this late in the season. Any salmon you catch now is a bonus salmon, but bonus salmon taste extra sweet, so....

 

     Here's a good report from Monday: "Got all these just north of the river in 250 ' 80-90 on the wire.lost two nice ones" I prefer catching reports to skunk reports (all reports are good information; happy reports are, not surprisingly, happier), so that makes this a good report, even if it's a bit late on the posting. As of now, there's salmon (some) being caught out in front of Bodega in about 250 feet of water. They're mostly not big but they're October salmon, so.... The weather turns on us tomorrow and is going to be doing a little of the rarer fall upwelling this week. 

      Since we're talking about good reports, here's another, this one from Thursday the 15th: "Hey Willy,

Beautiful day out on the bay today with my son Paolo and good friend Rick. Paolo was rewarded with a buck tail jig caught striper off Pelican Point. No halibut for us today and had the whole bay almost to ourselves.

Andrew Forchini" You gotta love those jig fish. There's something to be said for enticing a fish to bite a goofy-looking chunk of steel, lead, and hair. Nice fish, and way to save the day, Paolo. 

      

   My reports are late, this time because I went on a fishing trip with Gage and Cameron. While we didn't catch what we wanted to (we never have yet) we had a great time on the Polaris Supreme. I have been wanting to try fishing a surface iron since I first heard of it and it was awesome. Thanks to Monkey the deckhand/co-captain for the coaching. I have never seen fish bite like the dorado did. 

 

   So I get this picture at about 10:30 this morning from the Shrimp Boat. "Woninnabox! And just had another hookup. 225 off bird, lots of bird action" Soon after, another text: "Two Inna box! Last was 23 inches but I'll take it! Tim has 2 also" So, bottom line, no halibut.

   Tim also ended up with limits, even though he took Steve Werlin. I'm sorry, I mean in spite of taking Steve. No, I mean, ... well, they know what I mean. They also caught their salmon limits in less than an hour out in 225' of water, 140' down. Their fish weren't huge, but hey, it's good action in October. We don't need big ones.

    So Harvest Time sent me a couple of pictures at 2:30 this afternoon: "Lingcod limit on one drop", "And a 25# king" and finally "Salmon was taken 15 minutes ago 220' off bird, 100 pulls, watermelon apex, no flasher." I guess some guys can catch the big ones after all. Maybe the big ones were waiting for the little ones to leave. Whatever the reason, that's a good day of fishing. But the main takeaway for today is: no halibut.

     Josh Feagin caught this 16 pound striper in the surf yesterday. He was using a Kastmaster pretty close to Sand Point.

   Lorca Rossman sent in this report yesterday :"Decided to give it a try today and was rewarded with my first October salmon.  Fished from bird to Elephant for limits of jellies as well as 18 and 24lb salmon.  Fish came on herring near the bottom in dark brown water, 90 and 60'.  Few radio fish, scattered in the same general area." I don't know how many jellies are in a limit but I'm pretty sure it's more than I want to catch. It's nice to see salmon tails sticking out of the box in October. Well done, sir.

     Swampy fished three days this week and sent over this report: "Afternoon Willy,

Halibut fishing has slowed a bit down there. Managed one a day till yesterday when we boated 3 to 15 #s. Bait was easy near pelican and we even caught a handful of mackerel. While fishing near 5 Brian (who caught and released a good silver Sunday)  pointed out a Bald Eagle chasing a seagull off of Toms point. I don’t think I have ever seen one down there. For the record it got away minus a couple feathers. Also saw a sunfish in the bay, kinda neat.

Till next time, Swampy"  I'm glad to see you found a flat fish without your name it on it. There were some other halibut caught in the bay, a few around Hog but most of the "action" was nearer the mouth of the bay. Nobody knocked 'em dead but most people had a fish in the boat. On the Dungeness crab front the domoic acid testing has checked about half the ports and so far all tests have come back clean except for one crab off of Duxbury and even he wasn't too filthy (46ppm with a warning level of 30ppm). We have gotten to go crabbing before with dirtier tests, so it looks like maybe the DA won't be the reason we don't get to go crabbing. I'm sure someone can find a different reason.

 

 

     Aside from Spaced Invader's limit of salmon there's not much to report. A solo limit before noon in October is still a pretty damn good report, though. I received two texts with photos. "Elephant 118' 70' OTW straight bait" and "Second fish came off the slide 80' 60'Otw straight bait herring". I believe that one other fish was lost by Invader at Elephant. There's a few fish out there. From the halibut report today, there's probably more salmon than halibut around. I heard of a halibut caught by Hog but not much more than that. 

     Yesterday Mike Miller and his brother found another, larger salmon. This one was caught in 150 feet of water off of the Trees near a huge bunch of working pelicans. So this must be the last salmon, then.

    No, wait, these must be the last salmon? Today Miller Time limited on salmon, catching them from Bird Rock down to the Keyholes. So I'm probably going to kill it by saying this, but looks like it ain't over yet. At least, not for Mike Miller and crew. 

    Dougie B. sent me this photo with the note :"Corcina 12 lbs First fish ever" I don't know how or where it was caught but it's about 12 pounds larger than the ones Gage and I caught while jigging for flatties today. Our four bites were not as good as Corcina's fish.

    I need to check my email more often. Mike Mack sent me this report on Sunday: "2 halibut around hog on the outgoing tide 1 -7lb. 1-10lb. Few anchovies caught smelt ,shiners. Shiners caught the halibut. No hits on big smelt." As slow as the halibut fishing has been, this is like getting half limits in July. Very well done, gents.

   This picture is from today. Mike Miller swears that it's a salmon, and I can't disagree. The seemingly rare fish bit in 90 feet of water at the Keyholes. He said a nearby commercial boat landed four salmon for the day.  So, salmon fishing isn't dead, it's only mostly dead. Mike also picked up a halibut on McClure's. 

   In other news, the first results of domoic acid testing in Dungeness crab are in. Good news! The samples from Bodega Head and Point Reyes were below the action level. Only 15 more sets of samples to worry about. And whales. And turtles. Thank goodness there's nothing else to worry about. 

 

     Eddie Kim took his friends Craig and Chris out for halibut yesterday. "Really windy today blowing up to 20kts + worked the bait and scraped 3 Hali up to 15 lbs. before getting off by 1pm. " The only thing higher than the wind the last couple of days was the surf. It was definitely up, though.

     Here's the Coast Guard practicing on the Tomales Bar on Friday, courtesy of Wrybread. A couple of guys flipped their boat and ended up on the rocks near Stemple Creek/Estero de San Antonio Friday night and are pretty lucky to be alive. While there were some halibut caught in the bay over the last week it wasn't that good. I think the Coast Guard had more fun. They definitely had more fun than anyone that went salmon fishing. There have been rumors of a fish or two in the outer bay but I haven't seen any bodies. 

     On the Dungeness crab front, new rules are coming. You can get a sneak preview here. The proposed adoption date is December 9, 2020, so I think that means they will go into effect at the beginning of next year. A short summary is that you will need an additional Recreational Crab Trap Validation on your license ($2.25) and an additional "marker buoy" (3" x 5" red buoy) trailing the main buoy by no more than three feet to indicate that it's a trap (a picture of Admiral Ackbar is optional). You can't run more than ten of your traps but you can run an additional ten of somebody else's gear with their written permission. You have to run your gear "at intervals not to exceed nine days".  And if there's too many whales or turtles around the season could be delayed or closed entirely. I may switch to ring nets.   

 

   Mike Mack sent over a short report from the weekend: "30 anchovies sat no halibut 1 fat silver after release he took off fast. Sun 10 baits no halibut plenty rockfish bit the jig 90 to 110 in front of bird." Mike is doing us all a solid here. If I had been paying attention to the time I would have been warning folks fishing in the bay that the silvers (coho) were due to enter the bay. Luckily for us all, Mike realized what he had hooked and not only did the right thing (let it go), he also did the right thing (warned the rest of us). I'm sure he would have let it go anyhow, since he was halibut fishing and likely didn't have the correct (salmon, therefore barbless circle) hook tied on. Mike also notes that the rockfish were friendly while the halibut were not. There were a few halibut caught over the weekend and this week but not a whole bunch. The anchovies are starting to move out of the bay which could indicate the end is near for good halibut fishing. Soon you'll either have to be good or lucky, which leaves me out. The forecast for the end of the week through Saturday is kind of indicative that the weather may be changing as well, with 20 to 30 knots of wind and 9 to 12 foot seas on the agenda. It's supposed to smooth out after, for a day or two, but it appears that the season is winding down. There will still be a lot of good days and maybe even another tuna run or two if the weather allows, but the days are growing shorter and Dungeness season will upon us soon. On that note, no testing yet from CDPH, but fingers crossed for clean crab. 

 

     Sooo.... Halibut slowed down. A lot. You can still catch them, but it got a lot harder. Not as hard as catching bait, but pretty hard. Catching bait, now there's a man's game. The Eddie Kim spent 2 and 1/2 hours on Thursday to catch eight baits (Five anchovies and three shiners). Eddie has got the mojo, but that mojo wasn't working on them. 

On the salmon front, the hake fishing out in 300 FOW is spectacular! A wise commercial fisherman once told me that if you get in the hake, use the small ones for bait. The other hake would rather not eat them and the salmon love them. But, they count as groundfish, so this only works legally inside of the set of waypoints designating the 240 foot curve in the Code of Federal Regulations . Outside, in 300 feet , it would be illegal. A hake is about the last thing you would want a ticket for. What if someone found out? How embarrassing Other than a failed deepwater salmon run I haven't heard much. Hopefully the salmon are still biting closer to the Russian River in the 240-300 foot range. 

On the plus side, Gage tells me that the rockfish are biting like piranha off of Tomales Point and Bird. IO cannot personally confirm as I didn't fish there but I did help Gage clean a few of his rockfish. His depth was 80 to180 feet. 

 

   These properly masked marauders caught their limits of salmon to 17 pounds today. Beth and Peter Honebein (guess who caught the 17 pounder? Yup, not Peter) worked out to 300 feet of water (FOW)  and down 170' on the wire (OTW) up north of Bodega Head. They used small anchovies (tiny, truly) for bait and had more hookups than misses, unlike their trip a few days back when the fish wouldn't stick. Was it the size of the bait? Only the fish know, but for sure the fish will bite small baits (check their stomach contents; all sizes welcome). I've caught salmon on three inch anchovies and I'm not that good a fisherman. I just didn't know that fish wouldn't bite baits that small, and luckily, neither did the fish.

  So yesterday the halibut bit really well. Ah, yesterday. Yesterday was so good that the Beatles wrote a song about it. Today? Today many of the halibut fishermen came in with limits......of rockfish. Well, you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find,.... I gotta quit listening to the oldies station. Anyhow, the halibut didn't want to bite today for the guys that fished from here. There were a couple caught north of Hog but it was far from a good day. Maybe tomorrow?

 A quick one today- no salmon landed here that I heard of but the halibut in the bay took a beating. A regular landed a personal best and others with live bait did well, too. The guys I talked to were on this side of Hog Island but there were fish taken all over, eventually. It was a slow start. Anchovies, of course. Those dependable little bits of halibut catching goodness are scheduled to leave pretty soon, but nobody knows their schedule except for them. Get 'em while the getting is good because sooner rather than later the getting will be all over. 

     Eddie Kim caught these halibut yesterday near Hog. He said it was where he figured Swampy had been fishing during his stay here. We have no way of knowing that it's the case, but it seems likely that this pair of 17 pounders should have Swampy's name on them. Live anchovies, for those playing along at home.

     Bruce Loukonen sent this report, and while this report is not from here, we all like to see fish pictures, so...:"Jeremy Jamie Bruce trip to Albion on Labor Day 60 fish with 5 lingcod"  That's a lot of large, dead fish, Bruce. The size of those vermilion kind of makes me want to make the run. Almost. Well done.

    Mike Mack sent me report from today: "John 2 Mike 2 late afternoon bite picked up after tide started moving 4 good eaters." Well, Mike, I can see from the photo who caught the larger ones. That's all right, them smaller ones are better eaters. Live anchovies and candy bar jacksmelt were the weapons of choice today. With the thick smoke/fog most fishermen didn't want to or just plain couldn't leave the bay. That's just good sense when you can't see more than a couple hundred yards. There's a few guys running around out there on the "big ocean, small boats" theory, blazing around at full bore when they can't see the bow of their own boat. Staying in the bay seems safer to me, too. However, some folks ventured out (most after the smog had lifted) and caught a few salmon. There was a radio report of one off of Bird in 60 feet of water, but better than that, Beth and Peter Honebein caught three keepers and had numerous hits that didn't stick (two trays of bait's worth) north of Bodega Head out in the deep. Sorry, all I remember is the 16.5 north line. Since the fish up that way have been coming in 240 to 300 feet of water and down deep, I'd try letting out all my cable in 260 feet of water and hoping for the best with an Apex. But I've been spoiled by shallow salmon and my views on deep water fishing may be tainted.