I hope everybody had a good winter solstice holiday, Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever it is you may celebrate. It worked and the days are starting to get longer. It also worked in that my wife bought me the reel I wanted. Life is good. The total tally for the family by the end of Christmas makes me happy for my neighbors at the Outdoor Pro Shop. A reasonable amount of their sales were under our tree this year. Most of it wasn't mine, but still. I hope everybody got what they wanted, or at least, as the Jagger said, what you need. 

    The day after Christmas, the 26th, was the day for commercial boats to drop their traps, starting at 8:01 AM. Gage missed Christmas dinner with his mom and dad to go out with his cousin on a commercial crabber (more food for me). He heard of three boats requesting help from the Coast Guard on the 26th. Two were sinking when they called. One, a Farallon, sank (rolled over) just outside the jaws of Pillar Point harbor. At least one other may have been a boat out of San Francisco. I have no facts, but it is reasonably common for boats to roll over or sink on the opener with too much gear on board or on deck. What's too much? I don't know, but marine architects have math to say what's okay. My rule is that if it looks iffy then it is not okay. If I'm not sure then it's iffy. As a man I can tell you, if you think there may be a problem then there probably is (we tend to underestimate danger. Testosterone is a rough drug.) . Be sure and be safe. As far as we heard, everybody made it home safe, but still. A ride home in your own boat is way better then a ride home with the Coast Guard.

     There were only three launches out of here today and they did okay on the crab. Nobody left the bay but they all came home with crab. Low boat had six Dungeness and high boat was limited, so it sounds like there's still a few crab in the bay. Or there were. I heard yesterday that there was "black -out-the-meter" bait just south of Hog, near the yellow buoy. Could be herring. The time is right. The time to catch next season's blue label bait is upon us. Also, they're pretty damn tasty.