So the guys that come here every May and clobber the halibut spent five days here and, well, didn't. They did catch two on their last day. Generally, the guys on the three or four boats catch 20 to 40 halibut during their visit, but this year, by the last day they were pretty darned happy to catch these two. The fish had white spots when caught which I was told means that they just entered the bay. Again, I don't know that that's true but these fellows weren't catching any and then, some, so.... There's a few indications that the anchovies are on their way and my guess is that these halibut, like the pelicans and terns we've seen recently, are expecting the 'chovies to arrive shortly. You don't need anchovies for a good halibut bite but it sure helps.

       We did try for halibut for one drift this morning. Only one. No bites, and we ran for rockfish. Mostly it wasn't much better for us. In about three hours we caught about half-limits of rockfish down off Ten Mile in a place where you can normally limit in an hour or so. So we ran down to 4 by 3 (the reef four miles from Point Reyes and three miles from Ten Mile) where we were shut out. No bites. There was a super krill line at 100 to 130 feet down, though. So, being only a few miles from Point Reyes we ran the rest of the way. As you can see from Gage's smile, there's really nothing like bouncing a swimbait off of a rock and into the mouth of a hungry 15 pound lingcod. The last four trips we caught nothing but nausea in the slop at the Point but today the lings were happy. The UV hot squid 8" Pitbull Hot Tail was Gage's weapon of choice today. Other notes from Point Reyes: The rocks were covered in pink bird crap from the Common Murres covering them. The crap was pink from all the krill they've been eating. The last couple of days we haven't had the Northwest wind and the tiny break has already allowed the water to brown up a bit. If the wind ever quits for a longer stretch we'll be in good shape for a productive season. Of course, the wind blows tomorrow, so we're not really missing out on those closed salmon yet. But soon....