I'm not going to subject you to all three of the "hand and perch" photos I received today, but just know that there's some surfperch out there. Gage fished to outgoing this morning, so the fact that he caught anything is a pretty good indicator that there's some fish out there.  December's big surf did a pretty good job of erasing all the structure and, really, any reason for a fish to close enough to shore for us to catch it. Since then, the beach has been trying to rebuild. Storms have slowed it, but the beach persists. And apparently, so do the surfperch. It ain't wide open, but judging by the number of bites (that mostly didn't stick) that Gage had, there's probably a lot of small ones out there. Gear up accordingly, or wait for growth. 

   Crabwise, well, things are slow. We had a guy recently that spent his day working traps inside the bay for a grand total of two Dungeness. As he was pulling the boat out he saw a crab snare guy landing a double of legal crabs. After the boat dropped off he went over to the snare guy and asked him, how many others? The snare guy said, none. Only keepers of the day. The moral of the story is, when fishing or crabbing, the important thing is less about how many you catch but more about how many other people see you catch. Extra points to the fellow that. while only tying with him, made a boater feel like he wasted his time. I know, as I was told by an old fisherman, "it's not a competition, unless you're winning." Snarer +1. Also, I wish I was winning. Maybe next time. As far as crab in general, it kinda sucks all over as this is the tail end of what the commercial guys call "the clutch", that special time when a boy crabs and girl crabs decide food isn't as important as as making the next generation of crabs. And God love 'em for it. Except for when you're trying to catch them. It only gets better from here.

   So, everybody (with boats, or with friends with boats) is wondering about salmon and rockfish seasons this year. Both are TBD. Salmon returned in numbers slightly more than anticipated, so there's a slightly better than no chance of a salmon season this year. There may be no season, but chances of a season this year are slightly better than zero. SLIGHTLY BETTER. Chances are we'll be, yet again, pulling barbed hooks from numerous anadromous fish's jaws. But maybe not, for a damn short time.  Also, for rockfish, our seasons are also yet to be determined by the PFMC and the CDFW. From the tiny bit I've heard, it may be dramatically broken up between shallow (<120') and deep (>300') on a month-by-month basis. It is still TBD, but expect confusion. Hey, good news! There's still a place for for tackle shops ."What's the rules today?" "What day is it?" We have good calendars.