Sorry, life got in the way of the fun stuff.

   Here's one from last weekend. The halibut hasn't been a hot bite but Dan Dentone and crew picked up a keeper a bit south of Marshall on Memorial Day weekend. The water in the back is about 15 to 18 degrees warmer than the water in front and is closer to a halibut's happy temperature. There's some bait back there but it isn't everywhere. There were a few other halibut caught in the last few mostly wind-free days, those fish coming from Inverness all the way up to almost the mouth of the bay. There didn't seem to be a hot spot, but I heard of fish from the Red Barn, Marshall, Hog Island, and in front of the Landing. Not many fish, but enough to know that there are enough to fish for. 

    Chris Brown caught a 20 pound halibut this evening on a jig of his own design. Please note the excellent gaff shot into its vitals and not the meat (I've been practicing on Gage's fish). This would be the first fish on the bragging board (20# and up) this year. It was caught a short distance from the launch, and almost in the same location that Zach Liddell caught a 16 pounder yesterday (Cameron hasn't sent me the picture yet). I heard of another 16 pounder from this side of Hog Island today. There were a few stripers seen and hooked (not landed) on the bar yesterday and at least one caught and one lost on the beach this evening. The surfperch catching has also been excellent the last couple of days on the incoming tide in spots. If the tide is coming in and you're not getting bit (especially on Gulp!s) then you need to use your feet and head and to find another location. They're out there, somewhere, and they move around, and if you fish where they aren't, you won't catch any. 

  David Woodbury sent in this report from Saturday: "Willy,

Friday, May 27 - my daughter caught a small Coho.  200' off Bird Rock, 100' OTW, watermelon Apex.  Fish released.

Saturday, June 4 - my son caught a 15 or so pound Chinook.  150' off Bird Rock.  Fishing for lingcod with sardines.  Salmon hit the bait a few feet from the boat as my son was reeling in.  Fish released.

Too bad those dates weren't reversed.  Sigh.

David" The only thing that I catch while reeling in are jellyfish, but I do catch a lot of them. When they decided to close most of June for salmon you just knew that the fish would finally come in. One rando salmon on rockfish gear makes almost every salmon fisherman think that if he were doing the right salmon things there he'd have a lot of salmon to clean. The wind is supposed to go back to more of the blowing, so maybe we can declare sour grapes on the situation, but you still have to wonder if we're all missing the first big salmon bite off of Bodega. Oh well, those fish were probably sour, anyhow.

   I fielded a question about the Solunar tables in an email on Friday. Hunter Smith was asking if he should go try for crab and rockfish on Saturday when the Solunar tables predicted slow fishing. I wisely said that they haven't seemed to work for me. Go for it! His Saturday report: "Weather couldn’t have been better. Caught five rockfish three dungies and about 100 rock crabs off McClures" I guess we can deduce that the tables work for rockfish and Dungeness but not red crab. And that your results may vary.

   Last Wednesday Gage and I jumped on the Shellback out of Trinidad with Chris Brown's charter. Tony Sepulveda parked his boat over the Pacific halibut and we caught our limits early enough for a drive home in the daylight. My apologies and thanks to the kind CHP officers that decided to not give me a ticket for speeding. I learned a few things about PacBut fishing on the trip and Gage and I are going to give it a try around here this year. There's rumors of a gentleman out of Bodega regularly targeting and catching Pacifics and after eating some, I want to do that, too. If it works we will share our knowledge. Heck, we may even share the things that didn't work, too.