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.