Why are these guys celebrating?

   Because they caught one of these. We got a couple of days off from the West wind so on Wednesday Greg Carver and Doug Bagley took the opportunity to hit the water and they returned with a salmon. Not sure exactly where they hooked it and what it ate, but my understanding is that they were between McClure's and Tomales Point in 60 to 120 feet of water (at least, somebody that saw them was in that general area, so..). There may have been another salmon taken in the same area that day. I haven't heard of any others and Gage and I didn't have any salmon bites there (or anywhere we went) yesterday but 120 feet of water off of Tomales Point was pretty much the only bait we found, and it was very, very little. It did look like a few salmon were swimming around there (there were a few "worms" on the meter) but they really need to bite to be interesting. I haven't heard of any others being caught today or yesterday. So, basically, there was a salmon, and now there isn't.

    Gage and I took Guiseppi Maselli with us yesterday and he showed us how to catch lingcod. Over about two hours we caught our limits of rockfish and lings, with Guseppi catching all three of the largest lings which weighed in at 12 to 16 pounds. Almost all the fish were caught on 2 ounce Sardine Pitbull Deadeye jigs in 120 feet of water. The heaviest fish looked like it was full of eggs, but this not being spawning season, we kept it. It turned out that the distended belly was caused by a full stomach stuffed with a giant Pacific octopus tentacle. I knew lings loved octopus, but that octopus alive would likely eat that ling. By the way, that was the foulest-smelling octopus ceviche I ever smelled. One star.

    And now for the best report of the week, submitted by Matthew Lindsey: "Hey Willy, picked up this beauty on my daughters birthday 5-25 near hog. 37 Lbs 45 inches in the beautiful weather. Also took home a nice limit of rock fish." Gage did a spit take when I showed him this photo. Right now a 23 inch halibut from Tomales is a damn good fish as there ain't many of them coming in. I'm not sure where that puts this one. I want to be happy for you, Matthew, but my jealousy is getting in the way.