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.