One boat went out for salmon today and was rewarded for the trip. Nick Nichols and crew caught their four salmon to 20 pounds in 240 feet of water, 100 feet down, half on bait and half on a spoon. Most of the (king) salmon action has been North, especially around the Russian River, but the salmon are swimming North like something is chasing them. Something is, of course. Don't worry, they'll be back, and according to Nick a lot of them haven't left. 

      Here's a Saturday report: "Hey Willie, "Miller Time" here, disciple of Swampy. On Saturday Swampy Jr , Jake, and I took the SS Seafood down to Hogs for a few hours halibut adventure. Bait was sparse. One anchovy, that proceeded to jump off the hook before it actually hit the water, one shiner and a handful of jacksmelt.  Lucky for us the small jacksmelt and shiner met their demise in the jaws of Mrs  halibut ( N) of Hogs. Incoming tide and wind assisted.

MILLER TIME"

    Here's a question from Chris P Fish: "Hi willy,

I caught a bunch of these fish (pics attached) while salmon trolling, any idea on the species, i have asked several knowledgeable fisherman of the ocean and i get i dont knows or conflicting answers. thanks for the help,

chris" Anybody have a guess? The answer is sablefish, AKA black cod. Tasty (if you keep them chilled, like hake) and part of your groundfish (rockfish) limit with similar rules. Normally they are caught way deeper than we are allowed to fish. It looks like they might be hitting kind of aggressive with two on one hook. 

   It seems that until today Eddie Kim had never caught a striper in the ocean. Today he finally found the stripers that liked his live shiners. He and the Padre had a good day back by Hog.

     Ken Heller sent over this report from Sunday: "Hi Willy,

We went out for a few hours on Sunday. Started with some great advice from Gage on how to find them and where to start. The conditions started out a bit rough but did improve by mid-morning. We tried a bit of prospecting at a few different depths and found a nice patch of markings trolling going north of bird rock toward Bodega in about 240' of water with the fish in the 175-200' range. Lost one right at the boat and a couple of marked-up sardines before landing a decent 18# King.  Overall good day with the wife and boy, wish we could have stayed longer but anytime I have salmon on the boat is a good day!

Ken" Way to stick it out in some less-than-perfect weather, Ken. We'll have to talk about listening to Gage's advice in the future, though. It's good to see the whole family out fishing and even better to see them catching.