A new theme for this report: "Emails I missed while writing the report." Here's one from yesterday: "Hey Willy,

This slab was  caught by my friend Rick. Location? Big deep hole full of Sardines. Actually, my fish finder said the bottom was only ten feet down. That’s a lot of Sardines.

AF FISH" So this report was from Thursday. Friday the sardines had disappeared. Today I heard they were back but the guy that reported that was busy fishing with dead bait and was too occupied doing that to catch and fish the liveys. So I'm going to repeat myself. The fish are eating other fish when you're not around. Jigs, trolled bait, even dead bait to a degree, try to simulate a live fish. The best simulation of a live fish is a live fish. And sardines are like the ribeyes I can't afford to buy. Lots of fat. To Americans, we publicly disdain fat, but we love to eat it, as our programming says it tastes good. Fish have similar programming. Part of not dying is eating enough calories, and fat little fishies are full of calories. Fish know this, or they die. That's why they love sardines. Gage and I used buckets last week to keep a few alive (and only a few will stay alive in a bucket, but it only takes one to break to a skunk) so you don't need a baitwell, even though that would work better. Better is always better (it's in the name) but good enough is also good enough. Run what you brung. Last month, Gage and emptied out the anchor locker on my 1969 Whaler and used it as a baitwell. Limited. Not ideal, but better than eating beans. React to your conditions. The worse that can happen is that you won't catch, and if you already aren't catching, well....? AF FISH, good work. I was told that nobody caught under the sardines on Thursday, but it seems that you did. Nice job. Nice fish, too. That one is larger than any Gage and I caught that day. 

    Today's report (now that my rant is over. Sorry) was almost exclusively slow. The halibut for most fishermen were tough. Rockfish out in the ocean were actually pretty good, and at least one rock fisherman was concerned that the season was not open due to the fact that there were no other boats in sight while he was fishing in the shallows near Elephant Rock. He was fine, just nobody else was trying there. In the bay, halibut were tough, or worse. Numbers of catches ranged from mostly zeros to one, except for one boat. The boat that caught five for three guys jigging yesterday caught eight for four guys today. They were back early and swaggering around the campground early, and rightly so. These are my favorite fishermen. They don''t have all the fancy new gear and high speed reels. Don't need 'em. Fancy boat? Nope. They know where to go and what to do to catch fish, because that's what they love to do. This is Dave Prater's crew from Stockton, and if you don't catch fish like them, it's alright. Most of us don't, but we can practice and learn and aspire.