Finally. Eddie Parsons caught this 19 pound halibut on a jig while fishing near the Tomales bar today. He was just waiting for the second half of the year to kick off. Now that it has there will be trouble. Hopefully for the fish, but only time will tell.

    A few other boats had halibut today, none as large as Eddy's. Most of those fish were caught by Marshall but a few were caught near Hog Island. Live drifted or dead trolled bait was the ticket. No salmon landed here, probably because nobody went out to try. The mornings have been not too windy close to shore but offshore has been bad. It sounds like all the anchovies in the world are just south of Point Reyes. I hope at least some of them keep swimming north. A couple of million anchovies will make the halibut and salmon so happy. Oh, and me, too. Offshore the water is a soup of krill. We need a reason for some of those salmon to come inshore, and tons of anchovies is as good a reason as any. 

     The surfperch are still going strong as we are still in peak sand crab molt. At least one surf fisherman was seen packing in a limit of large stripers today. I spent a lot of time this last week making about a thousand casts for no fish, so I feel pretty comfortable saying that, while there's a better than average chance to catch a big striper from the beach right now, chances are that it ain't gonna happen. It is fun to try, though, and you have a slightly better chance of catching one when you're actually fishing for them.