The crabbing is, still, mostly slow, although a few guys in the bay are getting some decent numbers. I have seen a few crab shells in the campground that would suggest (in a at least one case, scream) that maybe a few of the crab being landed and eaten are not quite ready yet, legally-wise. We had a pretty serious low tide last weekend and the warden wrote several tickets but most were for short crab, not clams. Today Gage and I put three conicals in the outer bay while we fished the bar and ended up with three keeper Dungeness. None were commercial sized but there were several that were close but not quite. A couple were painfully close. Soon, though, the molt is coming.
For our bar fishing today we did not catch (nor expect to catch) a halibut but we did get four sand sole. We missed a couple of other bites and I lost one that I should have set the hook on. All bites in 18 to 30 feet of water on the outside of the bar and most of the bites on the turn of the tide. They do look a bit like halibut, I guess, but in the next photo you will see a clear difference.
Sand sole have long tendrils on their frill fin over their head, like this. California halibut do not. The sand sole today ate squid and a Berkley Gulp! Sandworm. We neglected to bring along any frozen anchovies and likely our numbers suffered for it, but the small flatfish seemed to enjoy all of our dead bait offerings. By the way, they are tasty.
6 comments:
Copy...Sand Sole have ...old man long stray hair eyebrows!
Nice catch boys!
Hi there, going to be in the bay next week and was wondering if I could get a few pointers on the sole fishing. We’re you trolling, drifting, or anchored? And we’re you using a standard halibut rig? Any info helps. Thank you!
We were drifting with standard halibut rigs. Best bite at the turn of the tide. Frozen squid and/or frozen anchovies get bites. Be aware that the sand sole are on the bar or just outside of it, placing the fisherman in the danger zone if the swell is high enough to cause a break. Anything over a four foot swell is spooky and over six foot is stupid/suicidal.
Copy that, so you're referring to the bar outside the mouth of tomales bay, and not the bar that you dig for clams is what I'm hearing right? I'm in a 14 footer so I try and stay inside regardless of swell. Thanks for the response. Very helpful.
Roger that, sand sole seem to stick to the ocean.
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