I took Giuseppi out fishing today and for five hours in three locations (outer bay, McClure's, Abbott's) we got no bites. I friendly fisherman swung by us in 35 feet of water at Abbott's and signaled that he was catching a few salmon up high a little deeper. So out to 60 feet we went with two lines at 20 pulls with one pound balls and anchovy specials with no flashers. No love for us still but a guy that passed us trolling the same way hooked and landed a fish, so I sped up to 2 knots. Boom, fish on. Ten minutes later, boom, fish off. Shortly after, another hookup and loss. Finally, at almost 2:00 PM, one in the box, the pictured, 22 pound salmon. By 3:40 we had limits. The second and third fish came at 15 pulls and the final fish bit at 10 pulls. We also caught a vermillion rockfish in 55 feet of water at the Towers at 15 pulls, plus three jacksmelt hooked on salmon gear. There were several other boats in the area catching fish as well, and the anchovies were thick at the surface from Abbott's Lagoon to the almost the first parking lot in 50 to 70 feet of water, so I'm going to guess that salmon catching may not be over yet. The outer bay and McClure's looked super fishy; the Towers area looked super-duper fishy and we limited. It may not last but it probably isn't over tomorrow. 

    Another thing not over is the halibut. "Morning Willy,

Went solo today and caught a limit north of hog. Surprised at the lack of boats and the rain (RAIN?) I experienced. I didn’t know it still did that in Ca. Thumbs up to your crew there, always good attitudes.

Swampy" This was a Tuesday morning report. Since that submission Swampy was joined by a team (cast of characters? rogue's gallery?) to assist him in more halibut catching. The wind on Tuesday should have kept them from catching but it didn't. They also did well on Thursday. Not limits, but with four guys you can catch quite a few and not limit. The halibut and salmon haven't heard that they're done biting. Don't tell them. When the fleet consists of ten boats stretching over two miles, life is good. October fishing is the best.

   David Witwicki sent over this photo and report: "Hoping you would post picture of my PB CA halibut...Caught Saturday off McClures...measure 43 inches" While I'd rather post pictures of fish that I caught, well, I haven't caught any, so here you go. We only had two launches from here today but both limited out on 8 to 12 pound halibut. Those fish aren't as big as David's, but limits are always welcome. 

   Spacedinvader sent in a report from today: "Got a limit today. Biggest 29lb dressed

Lost 2 others at the boat. 

Fish were hot ...

65' 40-55'otw straight bait 

Hope all is well"  All was well until I read your report. Then I felt bad about missing a good bite. I shouldn't; as I miss most of them I should be used to it. My understanding, from thirdhand reports, is that these fish came from McClure's or McClure's adjacent. From the scattered reports, it sounds a lot like August with scattered fish in the usual places (Abbott's, Keyholes, McClure's, Trees, Bird, outer bay) with no place being completely consistent for everyone for more than a day or two. This is fantastic news for the oil companies, as it means we need to run and gun, emphasis on the run. The biggest problem and benefit is that now there's about a tenth of the boat traffic as August, so less reports and boat looking, but also less boats to dodge. I love this time of year. Mano a fisho. 

Here's a report from John Derenzy from Friday: "Hey Willy,

Thank you for your blog I'm a daily reader.  It's not much of a report but on Friday I fished from north of Hog island to the south side.  I missed one fish on a dead herring and eventually hooked a Thresher shark which towed my kayak around like a sleigh.  I managed to get him to the boat a half dozen times but was reluctant to gaff him as I didn't feel like going for a swim.  I estimate he was a five foot fish and who knows how long the tail was, but it was a great fight and we both got to walk or swim away.  Thanks again for all your posts, on a side note I used to be your battery delivery guy for Interstate I hope everything is going well with you folks.

Best regards,

John " Nice story, John, and thanks Spacedinvader and John, all is pretty well over here. Getting a five foot + thresher to the boat from a kayak is tough. Those fish have some horsepower. One question; was the hook in its mouth or tail? Trolling baits, I have hooked most of mine in the tail. Mooching, in the mouth. The fish fights differently depending on hook placement. Tail-hooked pull like a tractor and then kind of peter out as your pulling on them deprives them of oxygen. Mouth-hooked like to jump and race around. Guess which kind I've landed more often? Threshers taste good but their main enjoyment for me is as a game fish and the joy of the fight. Because, man, they fight. The first time I ever heard a line hiss as it cut through the water was on a four foot (total length, including tail) thresher. I imagine that you were throwing a wake when it towed you.

   I can't upload a .pdf here, but I can link to it, so here it is: https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=195067&inline    The CDFW made this up to let you know, graphically, what is up for Dungeness crab season. This has been covered, but it bears repeating. It appears that I need to change the buoys on some of my gear as I have one pot with double buoys (Verboten!) and a few with buoys that are larger than 5" by 11" (Auch strengstens verboten!). I thought some of you may, too.  

    I have been asked not to put up any photos of halibut speared on the bar. So, officially, this 14.5 pound halibut was procured by unknown means, somewhere, by a smiling man in a rubber suit. There were some halibut caught on the bar today (one boat had as many as eight on board, but I don't know what percentage were bar fish other than at least a few of them). Jigs and live bait (and maybe an occasional spear?) were the killers. The guys salmon fishing from here didn't get any but I heard a few reports of a few fish caught in the outer bay and off of McClure's Beach. Two different boats reported seeing single large tuna jumping out of the water. My thinking is that the jellyfish would have eaten all the bluefin before they could get here, but both guys were sure that the fish they saw were larger than a bonito can get. Who knows? Now I'm looking forward to getting skunked on bluefin near home. That's a lot less gas and running. 

     Here's another salmon report from Branden Mendoza: "Hey willy it's been a rough couple of weeks for us but we were finally back out on the water. Ran down to 10 mile found loads of bait in about 80 feet of water. Managed to hook 2 fish. lost 1 and got the other. Pops couldn't be happier to finally put his first fish of the year on the boat. Caught it on a watermelon apex fishing 2 feet off the bottom the other was on a crippled anchovy at 44 feet on the wire. Fish weighed in at 20lbs." Kinda waiting a little late in the season to go get that first salmon. I guess you were waiting for them to get bigger. Looks like it worked. Well done, sirs.

 

    Ron Rush sent over this report from Tuesday: "Bruce Newman got his first halibut fishing with Ron Rush of woodland 25lbs 37in across from the boathouse fishing with dead herring on the 21st on out going tide" A 25 pound halibut for your first one kind of spoils you. Please don't be disappointed with a 10 pounder in the future, Bruce. Keepers are good. 

 

Sorry about the language in the video. Gage gets excited. Gage and I ran down to the Pioneer Canyon today. That's about a 60 mile run. We found the bluefin but couldn't find a biter. For the record, Gage did cast a Coltsniper but did not get bit. We had bluefin jumping around the boat three times at 37º 17' by 123º 00 ' for no takers. It was a three hour run down and almost six hours home when the wind came up. We are whupped and a little hypothermic. Good luck everybody else.

    Rodney Blankenship of Stockton caught this nice salmon on Saturday. Here's the report from James Hayes; "Hey Willy. Took friend and his wife out and caught nice 25 pounder on slides in 50 feet of water down 50 feet on wire Saturday morning. 

Hit cod out in 188 feet! All nice Fish! 

Had to keep boat in reverse the whole time to keep lines in water when fishing for cod! 

Finally called salmon quits because south swell got so big and short they were coming over the front and kept filling my 25.5 Grady with water! 

Hope all is well with you and the family.

James Hayes 

PS. Been a great year! Lot of fish and big too!" All is well enough, thanks, Jamie. The weather was not good for catching fish on Saturday, and salmon fishing in general has been slow, so this fish (and the unpictured rockfish) are significant victories for Mr. Hayes and his crew. Nicely done, all. It sucks to get a beating, but it sucks a lot less with fish in the box.

    The Dillon Beach Tuna Club had somebody back out at the last minute and is looking for one more for the trip on the Polaris Supreme on October 11 to 16th. Richard Baratta had reached out to me earlier about trips in the fall so I sent the info his way first. He can't go, but he sent a report over instead. "Thank Willy for thinking of me I’m feeling really big right now. No I didn’t book anything in October because there wasn’t anything available. Unfortunately I can’t do those dates it’s my daughter’s birthday and I’m in a suddenly overbooked with work in October now so that’s a no go. Went out on the California dawn out of San Francisco my go to charter boat to the Farallon Islands it’s a Deathly calm out there, and the fish are bad ass big.

Tight lines!"  Thanks for the report, Richard. The scariest thing in those pictures are the happy, lunge-feeding humpbacks. Those magnificent creatures are going to prevent your Dungeness season from opening on time. Probably. For sure, you now need a $2.42 Recreational Crab Trap Validation to drop a crab trap after November 1. Everybody crabbing with a trap does, I believe. So, anybody taking crab from traps, even under 16 years of age on a public pier, needs a Validation. If you buy one this year and it doesn't open until next year, well, the State of California thanks you for your donation to the cause and reminds you to purchase a new Validation for 2022 with your new license. And don't forget your 3" x 5" red buoys.

    Guess who figured out how to use his selfie timer? Gage caught this halibut on a jig in 45 feet of water outside of the bar today. Just inside of him, Tom and Jerrie Carter caught three on jacksmelt in 15 to 30 feet of water. A Tom quote for the day "...it was a target-rich environment." The fact that it's late season and the bar was busting off and on for the last two days should make everybody pause before running out there. There are fish there (or, there were today) but keep in mind that it's the scariest place around, for good reason. On the right day, hell yes, fish it. But keep your head on a swivel. People die on the bar for a reason. We are getting to that time of year when the swell starts to pick up. Alec is cleaning the lens of his camera to catch the next boat trying their luck over a breaking bar. But be forewarned; I probably won't post a suicide film. I say probably because there's a super slim chance that a portion could be educational. Never say never. But I don't want to watch anybody die and I think most people agree with that sentiment. So don't. Just don't.

 

     Vance Staplin took a few folks out for some rockfish yesterday. The South wind made drifting for rockcod diffcult but they did catch at least one fish. Curtis Crea of Oakdale hooked and landed this 55 pound white seabass on a 6 oz. Pitbull Bora jig in white. This was Curtis' first time ocean fishing. You may have peaked early, Curtis.  

    There were very few fish landed here yesterday and I didn't hear of any salmon. Today Mike Vaughn caught this solid 20 pound salmon just North of Estero de San Antonio (some of you may call it Stemple Creek) in the outer bay. Lots of bait and weeds out there but apparently there's still a shot at a salmon, too. Mike has been trying to catch a local salmon off-and-on all summer and he finally wore them down.

   I'm late to post this report from last week, but here it is: "Hey Willy,

Nice to spend a couple days at your place, need to carve out more time. Hali Report: Weds saw two keepers and one short for our boat. I caught the Skunkasaurous. Redeemed myself on Thurs with a 19, 15 and 9. Swampy Jr caught a clicker to bring out total to 4. Great time, will see you soon.

Swampy" So the moral of this report is that it ain't over yet. There's fish to be caught if you work hard for them and are a little lucky. Maybe a lot lucky, sometimes.

 

   First off, I had a few questions about what a squid ball at the surface (nettable) looked like. This. Sometimes with seagulls. I'd charge in but I've still got squid. These guys have to eat, too.

   Sherry Duby came all the way from South Carolina to catch these fish. It's Nathan Duby's fault. He grew up with Merle Lawson yelling at him, educating him on how to land a fish properly. So now Nathan comes out once a year (with his bride) to get yelled at in a similar manner. I try to do Merle's memory fairly, but sometimes I get excited and curse a bit more than Merle did. I consider that hyperreality. That little salmon circled the boat at least once and tried for twice before it hit the net. It turns out that, as they said in the Ice Pirates, 'Little guys try harder." Our fish, aside from a pity halibut on the bar in the afternoon, were caught at the Towers in 40 feet of water. Lots of anchovies (and jellies) in 70+ feet but the shallower water was fishable and had a few fish.

 

    Top boat today that I spoke with was Ron Johnson who had two halibut and a salmon. The halibut were both 17 pounds and were caught on the bar in his first two drifts. The drifts that came after resulted in his chasing salmon. The salmon was caught in 60 feet of water in the outer bay and was close to same size as the halibut. No pictures, but that's because neither halibut was as large as Mike Miller's 22.5 pound fish from yesterday. Mike didn't have another fish yesterday but he really didn't need one, either. I stood in for Mike for the photo:

   My cousin Nathan is visiting from the east coast, trying to sample a bit of the good fishing we've had this year, and so far I've shown him none of it. Today he did get a fish to boat while fishing with Cameron but their only bite, wasn't. It was with shaking hands that they removed the jig and allowed the sturgeon to swim away. I am reliably informed that a sturgeon snagged in the butt runs much like a white sea bass. 

    Colin here went fishing with Joe Winn today, and when you go fishing with Joe Winn there's a pretty good chance that someone's gonna be taking your picture while you're holding fish with a vaguely uncomfortable look on your face because the fish weigh more than you expected and this guy won't just take the damn picture. It happened to Colin. The fish weighed 13 and 17 pounds and were caught between Tom's Point and Tomales Point. At least one bit a Killer Jig. With one exception, the only action I heard of today was halibut inside the bay. Our small salmon fleet came back empty-handed or with halibut picked up on the bar on their way in. But at the 11th hour a text was received...

   ....from none other than Kevin Fogal. The first text was basically the picture above and the message," I can see your house from here." There were fish in Bodega Bay today. There's been reports of a few scattered fish over the last couple of days but Kevin put the wood to them today and was kind enough to call on the radio to let others in on the bite. He said he saw another 15 or more fish caught. Kevin is done salmon fishing for the season (horned creatures beware) and decided that he could share the bounty. Good on you, Kevin, and may the good karma deliver you some redder meat yet while hunting.

 

   Yesterday Gage took his girlfriend's brother and his crew out for a bachelor party fishing trip. I didn't even know that was an option. I kinda wish I had one of those instead of what I had. These guys don't look emotionally scarred at all. Of course, this is also before they cleaned all those rockcod and four gallons of squid. They stumbled over another squid ball at McClure's and these guys cleaned squid while fish were also getting cleaned. Animals. Cleaning a squid is easy. Cleaning a hundred squid sucks. The reason why cleaned squid cost a lot more than whole squid at the grocery store is because it is totally worth it.  At any rate, these guys cleaned up on the rockfish and the squid. And Bryan, the Voglers wish you and Amanda all the best. 

    Joe Winn's crew landed a few halibut to 18 pounds today. They were kind enough to release the largest fish yesterday and today, so thanks, Joe (I think one of them hit my jig on the bar this evening. It was big but didn't stick. But for a second, holy crap). (Joe's a good guy, but they weren't actually releases.) I think that you can still hold your heads very high, as your body count for the last couple of days was quite high. The amount of bites they had was even higher. Is the halibut fishing hot? Not for the rest of us, but there's apparently a few fish out there and there's a chance for the rest of us. 

    Totals today were low, but Peter Kim and Mike Mack both had salmon (one each). There were a few boats besides Joe Winn that had halibut in the last few days, so halibut looks like the slightly better bet. Halibut were caught from the Yellow buoy to the Tomales Bar, and salmon, if you want to call it the hot spot, were caught at or near Abbott's Lagoon. The water has gotten pretty cold (54º or so) and clear and much of the bait has relocated. If you can find a spot of bait you'll probably also find the salmon. 

 

    I'd like to tell you that I missed reporting on a lot of a fish caught in the last three days. What I failed to report in a timely manner was: 

Tuesday, out of four boats launched, John Rosasco caught a halibut on the bar on a jig (That must be why they call him Jigger John). No other fish. 

Wednesday, nobody launched but the wind blew plenty. 

Thursday, only a couple of launches and high boat was John Rosasco again with one halibut trolled up on McClure's Beach. That was it for game fish.

     Here's what Gage and I caught today. It worked out to about 12 gallons of squid. That's a lot of cephalopods, especially if you're cleaning them. We cleaned some but most of what we kept for ourselves will be bait. The fried calimari for dinner was really good. Calimari pasta tomorrow. I have been asked what the trick is to catch squid in this manner. The answer is, like most fishing, luck, and knowing an opportunity when you see it. If you've ever seen seagulls mobbing over a sea lion that's eating a salmon it stole off a hook, then you know what a squid ball looks like. Murres (or other diving birds but in my limited experience it's been Murres) dive down and chase the squid up to the surface. The seagulls then get a chance to feed themselves off of this accessible bounty. We saw the gulls from a quarter mile away and ran over. The birds bailed but the squid, still huddled together to avoid the birds' predation, made a ball about the size of a picnic table. On the second try Gage filled the net. It took the two of us to haul the squid into the boat. For the record, dark colored squid are pissed off. Also for the record, the wind blew pretty hard today and was abusive to most boaters on the water. We tried Ten Mile and Trees to Elephant for a goose egg. Thank goodness for loligo (doryteuthis?) opalescens.

    Yesterday's high salmon boat was, probably not coincidentally, today's high salmon boat. Mike Mack's big fish today weighed in at 22 pounds. Three salmon for the Mack team again. As the season winds down, Team Mack leans in and gets it done. 

   When it comes to getting things done, Fogals tend to excel. Kevin and Kyle (or is it really Kyle and Kevin now..?) Fogal caught three nice ones today. "We gave em hell today. Kyle and i  ended up with 3 salmon. We only saw one other one caught. We got the 2 big fish at the slide then the small one behind the seaward bell in the outer bay. We went 3/5" It really goes without mentioning, but I will, that these guys work hard, not just at their chosen professions but at fishing, too. I've seem Kevin working (as a paid guest) harder on a charter boat than the paid crew. (Side note: If you get the chance, go on a charter boat with Kevin. You will catch fish just by being near him) From what I've seen, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. Kyle is a killer of fish (and other things, too, but this is a fishing blog, mostly).

   Peter Kim limited solo today. Technically, that's high boat, as he couldn't legally catch any more salmon than he did, but we like to throw a bone to the other guys now and then. Peter was nice enough to send over a photo of his family fishing with him on Sunday. That may be less fish but but a better picture (sorry, Peter).  Probably a better day on the water, too. All of my best days (fish catching notwithstanding) were with family. Catching fish with them isn't a necessity, but it sure helps.

    There were some halibut caught on the Tomales Bar today. As a result, our local dream team, Chris Brown and Gage Vogler (and me; somebody had to drive the boat) hit the bar this evening for a grand total of one missed bite. I jigged until my arm hurt, then jigged some more. Often, you can do the right things in the right places the right way but still not catch. Been there, done that.

              

 

        Ken Heller caught this 22 pound salmon at the Trees today. This was one of two on the boat, the second, smaller fish being caught at Abbott's. Both fish liked Krippled Anchovies behind flashers. 

   There's nothing like going out late and dropping in right on the fish. Or so I'm told. Shrimp Boat landed a double to 20 pounds (gutted) in their first hour on the water and could have just come home then, but it was too nice to quit. They were at the Trees and their fish bit a bait behind a dodger and a hootchie. Not pictured but high salmon boat today was Andrew's Deplorables with Mike Mack and crew putting three salmon in the box. Also not pictured are the several boats without fish today. The best you could say about the salmon fishing is "spotty." But if you were in the right spot it was pretty good. 

 

 

    The Dream Team worked the beach today for halibut limits to 27 pounds. Which beach? Where on the beach? What were they using? A. J. Masters, Blake Jump and Kapulani Chong won't tell me, so I'm asking you. 

    Peter Kim and crew came in with a salmon and a halibut which may not seem like much, but to most of the fishermen today that looked pretty darned impressive. There were a lot of zeroes on the salmon count. The Honebeins caught a nice one (mid to high twenties) today, their only bite, and Jesse Keilman and crew landed two limits of salmon to 28 pounds today, with the exception of one fish they released, thinking that they could do better. Today was not the day to be releasing twelve pounders. Jesse's fish came from the Keyholes early, mostly, with the last fish hours later at Bird. 

    Teo Lally looks like he might be a future addition to the Dream Team. He caught halibuts weighing 18 and 25 pounds today. Not only that, he won't tell me how or where, either. Maybe he's already on that team. 

    I know I've mentioned it before and I'm going to do it again later, but since CDFW sent me a nice email I can cut and paste, here's a reminder about Dungeness season this year. Gird your loins: 

New Recreational Crab Regulations The California Fish and Game Commission adopted new regulations for the recreational crab fishery in late 2020. The revised regulations include the following new requirements when fishing with traps: a buoy marking requirement, a nine-day service interval requirement, a Recreational Crab Trap Validation requirement, and a 10-trap limit. Additionally, the new regulations authorize the CDFW Director to implement a season delay or early season closure due to marine life entanglement risk. It is anticipated that these regulations will be effective prior to the scheduled November opener for the recreational Dungeness crab season. For more information, please visit the California Fish and Game Commission's Regulations Webpage. Anglers can also sign up for updates on CDFW's Whale Safe Fisheries Webpage to receive important season information.

    Alec Bennett took Jerrie Carter out salmon fishing at the break of 10:00 this morning. It turns out that sometimes the early bird misses the worm entirely. These well-rested individuals returned as the high boat from here with three salmon to 27 pounds and two halibut. All fish caught in North McClure's/Trees area in 80ish feet of water on anchovies behind a dodger and a flasher/hootchie (slight edge to the junk). The Second Shift lives!

   

    Kevin Fogal sent me text this evening with this picture. "Willie I gave them hell today I got a late start this morning hooked 4   landed two salmon and two halibut same place trees to McClure white Hoochie in a race head with anchovies" Late start, eh? Maybe I see a pattern here. Then again, Kevin's late and Alec's late may be two entirely different time zones. I think Kevin lives on GMT. Whatever time zone, I see a hootchie pattern in there. Nice work Kevin. 

   Sorry, I didn't catch the name, but this fish weighed 18 pounds and was one of very few salmon that hit the scale today. I can say that Steve Cato was involved to a large degree. I can also say that most of the salmon fishermen returning today had what I can only describe as disgusted looks on their faces. There were a lot of zeroes today, and some of the guys with zeroes were not guys that get zeroes very often. I'm sorta used to it, but for these guys it hurt. There were fish caught from Tomales Point down to Abbott's Lagoon (and there may have been some fish off of the Head, too. Rumors) but, of the many, many boats, maybe half caught a fish or more. And there were many, many boats. Not as many as tomorrow, but a lot. If you're going out this weekend, good luck and fenders out. On the halibut front, I believe more were caught by salmon fishermen in deep water (deep for Northern California halibut). There were a few more caught on the bar today, two that I heard of, but that's two more than I heard about at Hog. 

   Here's a couple of pics from Eddie Kim's and Gage's trip on the Tomahawk out of San Diego this week. Eddie caught a 205 pound bluefin on the kite and Gage jigged up a 140 pounder. Gage hasn't arrived home yet, so I don't know whether the fish or his head is larger. It could go either way.

:

   Three salmon at the Keyholes to 26 pounds for us today, all by 9:30 AM. Debra caught the big one. Soon thereafter the bait moved out and the jellies moved in. We bailed at 11:00 and tried the Trees area that has been so good to us this year. Well, it seems like the Trees have been on one week and off the next and this week, well, wasn't "on."  We finished on the bar with a couple of halibut on jigs. Barbless jigs, for the record. I'd like to tell you that the barbless ones didn't shed fish like my head sheds hair but it was almost that bad. Luckily, the bar was a target rich environment. I only talked to a couple of guys but they caught salmon near Abbott's, not limits but fish in the box. There were some biters in the bay but only a few halibut in the box, as I heard it.

    Out of the three boats that launched from here today, one caught three halibut "North of Hog" on live bait, one caught three salmon and lost three salmon between Bird and Elephant, and one guy went for a bumpy boat ride down to Ten Mile for a couple of scratched baits. There were quite a few commercial boats out trolling as their season just reopened but it sounds like they're doing more trolling than catching. On the plus side, for anyone going out rockfishing in the next couple of weeks, this:

2021 Recreational Pacific Halibut Fishery to Reopen Sept. 3

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has announced that the recreational Pacific halibut fishery will reopen on Friday, Sept. 3 at 12 a.m. and remain open until Nov. 15 or until the quota is reached, whichever is earlier. Based on the current estimates of catch through June, CDFW estimates that 20,964 net pounds of the 39,260 net pound quota remain for anglers to catch. The 2021 recreational fishery was closed on June 30 due to projected attainment of the quota. Since that date, new 2021 catch information indicates that the catch volume in the early part of the season was much lower than projected. The new information prompted CDFW and its partners at National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) and the Pacific Fishery Management Council to evaluate the updated catch to date against the state’s quota, leading to the decision to reopen the fishery. CDFW is excited to provide this additional opportunity for anglers to participate in the 2021 recreational Pacific halibut fishery. CDFW field staff will continue to collect information from anglers at public launch ramps and charter boat landings to monitor catch through the remainder of the season. Anglers’ cooperation aids CDFW field staff in monitoring the progress of the fishery to ensure the quota is not exceeded. Anglers are always advised to check for updated information when planning a Pacific halibut fishing trip, as a season closure announcement could come at any time. Other regulatory information, including bag/possession limits and gear restrictions, can be found on CDFW’s Pacific halibut webpage. Public notification of any in-season change to regulations is made through the NMFS Pacific halibut hotline at (800) 662-9825 or CDFW’s Groundfish and Pacific halibut Regulations Hotline at (831) 649-2801. Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessels are reminded that the appropriate IPHC license is required. For license application information, please visit the IPHC website.