You gotta love the stories where they start with, "I've been fishing here for years but never caught anything..." and end with, "Can you weigh my halibut?" Weight, 15 pounds. This halibut was caught from shore. "From shore" makes almost all catching more complicated. Your options for fishing areas are where you can walk to and cast, not the entire ocean. This fish bit a 3 ounce spoon, and I think it was a Kastmaster but I will correct if told I'm wrong. Unless my wife tells me. It sounded like this fish took him on quite a ride. halibut can be complicated to land with the right gear and experience doing it. Landing one for your first time on the beach without net or gaff sounds like more than hard. I bet that fish tastes better than any fish I've caught in the last two decades.

   There's rumors of white sea bass inside Tomales Bay, but I can tell you, nope. Nothing to see here. Even if there were sea bass, they're all shorties. Or mostly. Or I don't know. "Fight Club" rules are hard. Okay, they're here, but not a lot of them and they are dainty in their size. As I am not a WSB master, I can give no masterful info, but as a guy that has stumbled over a few, here's a crappy, stumbly tip: Fish for halibut a lot. I'm sure that white sea bass can be targeted when conditions are right and you know what to look for. My narrow window of knowledge in this area says it ain't here. Water in the ocean cold, no squid. But occasionally you catch one while fishing for halibut. So keep doing that. Works for me, sometimes. This evening I caught two keeper halibut and two short WSB. I just wish that they were bigger. Other halibut fishermen had a good day today with limits for some. The largest that I saw came from the beach but the best numbers came from Hog Island back to Heart's Desire. Probably not coincidentally, sardines can be found from Hog to Heart's. One of mine bit a live, trolled sardine. Good weather for fishing for the next few days. Come on out and do a little combat fishing in the cool weather with everybody else. Or, sit under your AC and be happy you're home. Either way, good times.

 

 

     I'm always happy to catch someone walking through the parking lot with a big fish. I'm especially happy to see this one as the surf stripers have been relatively absent so far this year. Aside from this obvious sign that things may be changing, there's also a lot of birds working bait off of the beach and on the bar. It might just be go time for surf stripers. The halibut bite was okay today and the wind didn't blow as hard as it was predicted. The next few days look like very nice weather so the ocean water may get warm enough to thaw the icebergs just offshore. And then the wind returns.