I received this text and photo from Tom Brodsky yesterday morning at 7:52 AM: "Early bite" My guess is that this cryptic message means that, even though the previous day he fished from 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM with only a scratched bait, his morning yesterday was much more productive. 180 feet of water in front of Bird, as I recall he told me later. I have heard of some other good numbers of fish caught off of Bodega Head and down to Elephant (rumors of a bite at 4 and 3? Perhaps someone fishing for a scout?) but mostly all early. Today the only salmon fisherman I spoke with had one and released another off Bird before 10:00 AM. Then the bait faded away with the bite. It seems that the fish may have moved down to Elephant later in the day (judging by reported boat traffic) but I haven't seen a fish from there yet.
     I did talk to one halibut fisherman today. One halibut (kept) and one leopard shark (released). I believe the location was Hog Island related. Not quite the success story I was looking for (neither was the salmon story; I need body count if I'm gonna catch) so I'll probably leave them fish alone tomorrow. That, plus it looks like we need to change most of our campsites in the next four days in order to comply with the recently released Covid rules from the County. It's weird that campsites outside in the open air and sun need to be separated by six feet or more yet hotels get all of their rooms. I guess that after the all the protests with all the people close together outside and then there was the huge spike in illness I never heard about because of it, I guess that clued people in to how dangerous camping or other outdoor activities really are. Thank God my family and employees have survived this long. FYI, this ain't political, at least it isn't if actual science dictates the rules. Otherwise it's just someone picking winners and losers, and while I kinda expected to be a loser it still hurts. If someone can explain to me how people camping 20 feet away from each other is more dangerous, Covid-19-wise, than a hotel, I'm always interested to learn. Oh well, at least I still have a job, I guess. So far, better than some.
   Anyhoo (this bothers Cameron, so...) there are still some sandcrabs molting, so surf fishing for surfperch wouldn't be off of the table. The ospreys are killing them, so they're out there, just maybe not in range of your cast. If history is any indicator there should be a striper bite in the surf between Sunday and Thursday in the evening. It is my mission to outfish the Gage during this window. We shall see.