It turns out that jigging works. Gage looked startled when I asked him to gaff my fish, as usually it's the other way around. This one weighed 17 pounds and bit at the turn of the tide in 53º water well North of Hog. I heard of a couple other halibut trolled up from Marshall today and a few others in the past few days near Hog for the skilled and lucky. The halibut bite ain't on fire, but there's a chance. A poor chance. 

   The oceanfront beach has had quite a few surfperch (barred and redtails) and that's probably because it's time for the great sandcrab molt. Perch love sandcrabs and they love the soft shells the best. Come to think of it, they're actually pretty tasty, so I get it. Stripers like those sandcrabs too, and the perch are full of babies that stripers (and yeah, the perch) like to eat as well. I couldn't catch anything except for boots full of water when I went, but Gage caught many surfperch after he finally found them last Tuesday night. He wandered the beach for an hour casting for nothing but three keeper-sized Dungeness crab (they like the Gulp! worms too, it seems) until he found the spot mid-beach that the surfperch were holding their convention in. When he switched to Kastmasters for stripers the surfperch just kept biting. My results varied. Yours? I wish you Gage's luck, not mine.