Sam Winglewich sent over this report this morning: "Hey Willie, over the weekend of the 4th I attempted to find the football. 

Around 400ft off the coast of Jenner, the sonar decided to be that way again,and the display turned into a depthless, featureless confetti void. So I fished blind - just looked for birds and baitfish activities, tied on an anchovy-esque Tady, and hoped bottom feeders were nearby to pick off the scraps. 

2hrs baitball adjacent resulted in way more blackcod than I decided to keep, a good Petrale sole, sanddabs punching above their weight, and 2 chilipeppers. All of the blackcod and chilipepper hacked up dead chovies on arrival. 

I'm sure Rittenburg, Football, and Fanny Shoals were amazing, but it appears a man can still break away from the fleet, feel it out, and come home with a full cooler. That or I'm the stopped clock, and I just happened to be right for one glorious, fleeting, ego-stroking moment. 

Tight lines,

Sam W " I don't think you qualify as the stopped clock. FWIW, I think that there's a lot more life out there at that 400'+ mark than we ever thought. In the 1980's my grandfather, Merle, was trying to find more fish to catch with his charter boat after Cordell was pretty well fished out. We stumbled over a few schools of mixed black cod (sablefish) and yellowtail rockfish between Cordell and Rittenburg but couldn't find a consistent sweet spot. Soon after, he sold the boat and I found out what it was like to not vomit once a week (HINT: It's nice). Maybe the fish weren't there, then. Maybe we looked for fish, like love, in all the wrong places. Whatever. Sam found them. Gage found them. Harvest Time found them. Probably you just need to look for them. Not to minimize Sam's discovery, but it seems that if you can find them without looking properly (sonar not working) imagine your results with actual sonar! All this being said, all-depth rockfish opens on July 16, and then you won't have to search or go deep. It's kind of a shame, though, because those deep fish taste goooood. Nice work, Sam. You found 'em. I still don't think it's easy, I just think you proved it's more possible than I thought. Good on you, sir.

    Eddie Kim took a break from bluefin in San Diego (or did the bluefin get a break from him???) and he stopped by for a few days to spend time with family and friends. They caught three halibut on live jacksmelt, but the peaceful family vibe may have been violated when Eddie barked at them for losing two other fish. I love you guys, too, but I'm team Eddie on fish losing. Unacceptable.(!?) Next time, all fish come aboard. On the halibut front, there's fish from Marconi to the Tomales Bar. There's more active fish farther back in the bay, but there's a few biters all over. I was even able to catch a halibut on my first cast this evening. It was barely legal, but just big enough. A couple of hundred casts later, I had missed two other striper bites and released one striper about 12 pounds. There's a few fish around.