Happy rockfish season! Well, not for this ling or many others of his ilk, but happy for fisherpersons that have been waiting for a reason to get on the water. The local bite was a bit slow in the shallows but the deeper you went the bitier they were (likely a function of the pretty bright moon last night). You didn't need to go super deep (although you can now go to 300 feet of water as defined in 50 CFR Part 660, Subpart C) as the folks I'm familiar with caught their limits in 90 to 120 feet of water. My Pitbull Tackle gift box from Christmas came in handy today for limits of rockfish and lings. In particular, the 2 oz. Deadeye Jig in Sardine was heavily abused by the fish today. Things got a little tougher when the afternoon breeze picked up and it was hard to maintain bottom contact with the light gear, but that's what reverse gear was invented for. The weather looks good for this weekend and we left a lot of fish for the rest of you.

    On the crabbing front, not too much has changed. Snarers had a few on the beach in front of the Boathouse but most of the crabbers were there more for the weather than the crab. On the ocean, and unscientific test was performed by a friend that dropped three pots in the Outer Bay and three on Ten Mile at the Towers. The Towers pots had a total of two crab at the end of the day while the closer pots had twelve. I guess there's a reason why there's been commercial boats and crab gear in the Outer Bay. It ain't red hot but it sucks less than everywhere else.