Maybe it is Gage. No, I can't allow myself to believe it. I do believe that we are incredibly lucky. This morning he and I caught our limits of salmon weighing 21, 26, 27 and 30 pounds, by 8:10 AM. The first fish hit the deck at 7:10. We fished just below the Trees in 70 to 95 feet of water. When we arrived there were pelicans, Murres, and seagulls all feeding on squid and anchovies. The anchovies were flipping at the surface and it looked like squalls of rain were moving through. By 8:00 there were only a handful of Murres and seagulls left. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that it may be an early bite. All out fish bit purple haze hootchies behind flashers at 25 to 30 pulls on a 2 pound ball at 1 to 1.5 knots (according to the fishfinder they were 50 to 60 feet down). Other boats that arrived early-ish were rewarded as well. 

   Alec Bennett on the Shrimp Boat had other things to do today (responsible things, probably) but couldn't handle his wildly vibrating phone with pictures of fish only right there.  He ended up with these two to 25 pounds and learned another important lesson about checking your leader for nicks between fish. All his action was between 10:00 and 11:00 AM, so there's hope for those that like to sleep in.  Jerry Knedel also caught his limit there, as well as Sean Bottomley.

    Sean Bottomley switched to mooching to catch three of his four (he had a guest). Also mooching nearby was Marina Tweed, who landed a 42 pounder, her personal best. The water was super dark and weedy, so mooching is probably the smarter method. If it catches monsters like this (and apparently, it does) it may be worth consideration. Nice job, Marina. I'll bet it took you for a stroll around the boat a few times. The Trees was not the only bite today. Abbott's had limits for at least a few of the intrepid fishermen that ignored the NWS Zone forecast and bet on the pinpoint. Pinpoint 1, Zone 0. I'll bet that there were more bites than that going off up here today. It appears that a fresh batch of salmon is moving through on their way to the river. Of our four, two had orange flesh and bellies full of squid and anchovies and two had ruby red flesh and less in their stomachs. Our guess? Some new fish came into the area and started feeding and that kickstarted the others that had been sitting there on the bottom thinking about how they shouldn't swim after a meal. Why would full fish bite? FOMO. When you suffer from Fear Of Missing Out, that's your reptile brain pulling your strings. 

    On the halibut front. they're still biting. After dropping off our salmon at the Landing (thank you for the borrowed ice chest, Tim) we popped out to Buoy "02" for a dozen anchovies. After a pleasant bout of bat ray action on the bar we retired to Gage's spot from yesterday. The fish were still there (less of them; Gage caught a few) and we ended up landing two before noon. I lost a personal best of three. One I saw. We missed another three bites. The two we landed sucked the little anchovies deep. My guess is the ones we didn't catch were little, as they couldn't gobble the bait as easily as the larger ones, and also because of the sour grapes rule. We saw a couple of others caught. We left a kayaker in charge of our lucky crab pot that most of our bites came by. If you read this, please let me know if you caught there. I'm looking for redemption by proxy. Gage gave me a pretty hard stink eye after that third fish on-and-off.