Chris Norkus sent over this report this morning: "Hi Willy,

 

Had a great time on the bay with my kids this weekend.  My daughter Anna, caught this (our only) halibut just south of the weather bouy. It was exactly 22 inches.  We had four lines in the water and the breeze kicked up so to avoid tangles I dropped anchor and we jigged frozen herring (couldn't seem to conjure the smelt from the grass at first). We kept losing our bait and I discovered that the reason for that was we weren't moving and so the crabs were having at it- so jig faster!  Also noticed a bunch of people with hoop nets and I let a couple of them know that the dungie season actually closed on Friday. Maybe they were only keeping rock crab but who knows? Lucky for some, perhaps, that F&G didn't seem to be at the dock on Saturday.  Happy Independence Day to you, Willy!

" And a happy one to you as well., sir. Nice work to change up your methods as the conditions change. May I also suggest backtrolling (motor in reverse, sometimes in and out of reverse, to slow the boat) or a parachute or similar item to slow your drift. Covering a bit of ground in a controlled manner can lead to larger numbers of critters, unless you anchor over a school of fish, which I highly recommend. Your success yesterday was shared by many today as well. Halibut were caught from south of Marconi to the Tomales Bay bar. Numbers ranged from 0 to 4 that I heard about, with most having two. Here's another halibut:

   "Chris Ramirez from Santa Rosa. Bar on a little shiner. 18 lb" Nice fish, Chris. Chris caught two halibut on the bar today. Numbers of halibut, as I said, averaged two, but Chris' fish was the largest halibut we weighed in today. But not the largest fish....

   When you need a tractor to unload your fish you've had a pretty good day. This bluefin tuna weighed 123 pounds, gutted, on our scale, and the measurements suggest it weighed 145 pounds or so in the round. It bit a MadMac between Rittenburg and Cordell and is officially credited to Clay Bushey of Sacramento. Any muffled popping sounds you have heard this afternoon was, as you may have guessed, Gage's head exploding again. When I was informed that this fish was on its way in I called Gage, as he was still at lunch, to let him know that a BFT was fifteen minutes out. I heard a "Wha...?" "POP!" and the phone sounded like it fell on the ground. I hung up, as I had things to do. Reports are that there were many bluefin caught today from the Bodega weather buoy to at least Monterey. No reason for anybody to crowd in anywhere. Plenty of fish, and ocean, for everyone. Oh, before I forget; Nice damn fish, gents.

   This striper was caught and released last evening at, you guessed it, sundown. The fisherman looks a lot like one of the guys that caught that bluefin, probably because it is one of those guys. He was still pretty stoked, post tuna, about the surf striper. He's not wrong. When that fish finally bites... yeah, it's pretty damned good. Chances are good right now from the shore at slack tide, good being relative. You probably won't catch. But your chances are about as good as they get. So, maybe. I may have mentioned in the past that I'm a fan of Redrum Baits tube jigs for stripers, and not coincidentally, the owner is here visiting and he and his friend landed, well, let's just say over ten stripers caught and released today. Not all on tubes, but tubes were working. Gage and I went out this evening and were able to tie with them, everybody catching one fish each. Some guys had more bites with fish lost (not me; One for one) but everyone had action. All fish released, but to be fair, if stripers should be released then they shouldn't taste so damned good. Just saying.