Three evenings of fishing for stripers and no bites for me kind of got me down. The Gage calls me this morning at 7:38 : " They're biting! I just hooked two in two casts!" Honestly, there were more exclamation points in his actual words, but time and space doesn't allow for it here. Let's just say that his animated tone (animated like a cartoon character) motivated me to hurry. No salmon fishing and slow halibut fishing means things are slow in the morning, so I went fishing. At 8:00, as I pulled up alongside Gage at the bar I saw Alec Bennett reeling in his second striper of the season (third ever, I believe. He shook off his striper Jonah today and seems much happier). Then the bite died. By 8:35 Gage and Alec left to try for halibut. Gage jigged up a 14 pound halibut yesterday after his pal Anthony Piccardo landed two across the bay from the Boathouse, then told Gage. Gage went over there. I stubbornly stuck it out a bit longer, and at 8:45 hooked my first striper. Two casts later I called Gage with my second fish hooked up. Suddenly, he was back! By about 9:15 it was over. I think Gage (Bigfoot Baits purple tube jig) landed one and lost a couple of others, Alec (chrome Kastmaster) landed four, and I (purple Redrum tubecracker jig) caught three. Four were kept and four released. The stripers ran 10 to 15 pounds. The halibut yesterday averaged a bit less, but didn't need measuring. It ain't wide open but it's far from sucking. The same can be said about the crabbing. As usual, a few guys are doing pretty well and many crabbers are only catching a few. Hot spots? Mostly in the few guys boats, but if I was going to try I'd go work the outer bay if possible, otherwise it's good old Marker 5. 
   

   Harvest Time gave the deep water (and his electric reel) a shot on Tuesday and it seems that it worked out for him. He caught his chilipeppers (and sablefish, and hake) out in 550 feet of water where the earth falls away from the continent towards the abyssal plain. Others have found the fish in water as shallow as 375 feet. Average seems to be 450 to 550 but the data points are still limited as we are all new to this. Look for a haze on the bottom. If you go, please share your successful depth so that we can build a bit of knowledge. That part of the ocean is big, and we can all pool our info to help make it a bit smaller for searching. Thanks for the info, Steve.