No mystery on location for this report. "Willy, pretty good day down off Reyes. It was not a wide open bite except for a 30 minute flurry of action but we worked it for a couple ling and near limits of rock fish. Gorgeous day!!

We fished amongst a couple private boats and four charters from SF

Best Regards

Kelley" Looks like a good day to me. Any day you're catching your targeted species is a good day. Good weather, even better. Glad you got your boat working again. Ready for salmon next year, if we're all that lucky... 

   A slower day today on the halibut front. Local hero Shrimp Boat struggled for the one nice one he finally gaffed on the bar. I heard that the local legend Nick Bauer payed a visit and was rewarded with a limit between the bar and Marker 5. Mike Mack and Spinner worked all day for rockfish and three halibut. Most fishermen (at least the ones I talked to) did less. There's some fish coming in, but like money or technology, they're not evenly distributed. Also, the bite is a bit unpredictable. When it's good, booyah! The rest of the time is boring sadness. We all want to be John Wick but mostly we're lucky to be Dorf. 

   I did hear a rumor of a boat out of Bodega catching 25 albacore today, along with two bigeye, 150 and 225 pounds. It's good rumor. It may not be true, but never let the truth get in the way of a good story, I say. I may not sleep tonight. 

   James Ludovina didn't catch a 25 pounder yesterday. He did catch a 22 pound and 20 pound halibut for a 42 pound limit before 10:00 AM. That'll do. He seemed happy. Live jacksmelt were eaten by these fish in about 28 feet of water about an hour before the high tide. He was fishing off of the parking lot at Dillon Beach, but the bite was short (but intense). Good work, James. See you Sunday.

    Ed Parsons caught his personal best halibut on the bar yesterday. He put his tiny faithful boat, Pooter, over this 31 pound slab. Gage and I called him in to a couple of bites off of the parking lot earlier, but while others were catching poor Ed couldn't get a bite. We were trying to call him in to regular sized fish, so I guess it worked out. Gage and I caught our four pretty quick (to 20 and 21 pounds) and released one keeper intentionally and one at least as big as Ed's unintentionally. Sorry, Gage. There's some fish biting, when they're biting, and when they're biting, well, it's good. 

    The Coastodian sent me another report from Fort Bragg: "The albacore store is still well stocked. Had to stop at 12, no more room. Larger than last week." The fish are close at Bragg. Case in point, here. But, Monterey to Bragg there are fish. It turns out that I missed out yesterday, as there were some closer tuna than 70 miles out. Who knew? Probably nobody, but optimists are the guys that find fish. Thanks, positive thinkers! 

    Out of Bodega today. I don't have numbers, only this: "Kaare had a BF and 8 albacore today" Gage says not a bluefin, as the pectoral fins are a bit long and the eye is large. Gage says Bigeye. Could be. Either way, hot damn.  Game. On. Let's go!

 

   Shrimp Boat is figuring out these halibut, it seems. Or, the fish are in. As many people didn't do nearly as well yesterday, hat tip to Alec. On his first trip out in the morning, Alec and Paul Giese caught their limits which weighed 27, 21, 15 and 14 pounds, first picture. He then took Cameron out for a shot at the halibut. It took a bit longer, but Cameron caught his two (not quite as large, but...) on jigs, not live bait, even though live bait was in the water. Jig-caught fish are the best, IMHO.

   These are jig-caught fish. Gage and I went out after work last night and caught these in about 20 minutes on Bigfoot Baits jigs. We were fishing in a spot that we would rather keep mum, but we fished it because it seemed that some halibut were coming in from the deep. We could see them hovering over the bottom on the fishfinder. I think they're coming in. At one point, I told Gage, "There's a couple halibut right above the bottom!" He said, "Catch 'em!" As he said it, I hooked up, so I said, "I just did!" Bam! It's that easy, when it's that easy. As a general rule, it ain't that easy. We fished for another hour for no more bites. 

  Although some people find it pretty easy to catch, it wasn't that easy today. Kelly Goligowski's 12 pounder wasn't easy, it did make it into the boat. This fish came late in the day and made them fish longer than they intended, as you don't leave biters unless you're limited or they quit biting.. In this case, they quit biting. But when this one bit is was near Marker 5. 

     I was sent this picture yesterday. It was forwarded from a friend that received a text with this picture saying, "apparently you can catch a halibut without a boat!". This is true, but it ain't easy. Gage says this fisherman's name is Aaron. Good job Aaron. 

    Today was nice to start, and then the south wind hit and all the boats bailed out by 1:00 PM or so. Except for James Ludovina of Roseville. James caught this personal best 25 pound halibut this morning before the wind messed things up. He parked his boat on the beach and waited for the wind to drop. It finally did, and he went back out to finish his limit. I don't know if he did catch the second one, but the fact that he waitied and went back out makes James a dedicated fisherman, and that dedication to figuring it out and grinding paid off today. Nice work James. Like surf halibut, and especially this year, it ain't easy. But success when it ain't easy is so, so sweet.

    Not a local report, but sorta. From the Coastodian: "Hi Willy,

Welcome back north.

Yes, albacore are in. Caught these two and several more on Saturday a little south of Fort Bragg about 11 miles out. Lots of peanuts, mid-teens and a few 20-25 pounds. Singles, doubles, one triple and one quad. Landed every one of 'em. Which was satisfying." If catching becomes unsatisfying, see your doctor. Something is definitely wrong with you. That water our friend fished in will eventually move our way. If possible, I suggest that you make a trip to Fort Bragg as it will never be as close to shore here as it gets up there. Eleven miles is not gonna happen here. That's not even the first leg of the trip. But I digress in my whining. Nice work, sir. The water here looks to be still about 70 miles out. Maybe later for me.

    Remember when I said that there weren't any fish in the bay? I hope not. Rob from Santa Rosa knew better than to believe me and was rewarded with a quick limit this morning. Alec of the Shrimp Boat met him this morning at Miller Park. His text: "Just met Rob from Santa Rosa who loves the blog. He wanted me to send you a pic of his fish and his report. So!

Rob from Santa Rosa got these two within an hour of launching at 6:30 from Miller Launch. They came  between Pelican and the weather buoy on big anchovies. Which apparently are plentiful back here now!" On the halibut, nice work, Rob! You are right to assume that I know very little. Have faith in yourself and you will prevail, clearly. On the anchovies, James found big ones swarming at the Pelican Point hole on Monday. Yesterday, nothing. Apparently today, they're back! Lesson: Bait at the Pelican Hole is a definite maybe. Look and hope but don't count on it being there. Have a back-up plan. That's actually a good rule all the time.

   Last Friday Richard Baratta presented me with this gaff he made. It is awesome. The only problem I have with this gaff is that once my wife saw it she decided that it's hers and that poking it into a fish was probably not allowed. Maybe her fish. Definitely not mine. Sigh. My complaint, I guess, is that it is too pretty. For my situation, at least. Thank you, Rich, and I hope to sneak it out and get it bloody. Then clean it so she doesn't know. Like Ferris Bueller. It's the Ferrari. 
 

 

   Tom and Jerrie Carter found a patch of good ones today. The fish weighed 13 to 16.5 pounds and they bit live jacksmelt. They missed as many bites as they hooked, so there's a few fish around. Apparently the wind quit here when I left, but started blowing offshore in SoCal, where I went. Huh. Probably coincidence? I hope... At least the water here has warmed up and the fish are moving. I've only been back here for a day and only spoke to a few people but it sounds like some of the deep water halibut with an urge to make little halibut have warmed up enough to slide in to the beach and bay. Probably, for the next few days at least, the good catching should move from the bar toward Hog as the fish move in to sheltered waters. Probably.

   The Carters were not the only successful fisherpeople today. I received this picture at 10:30 this morning from Shrimp Boat captain Alec Bennett. He was fishing not quite off of Dillon Beach. The fish ate, no surprise, live jacksmelt. One wonders how jacksmelt live long enough to spawn.

   The warmer water has other fish moving around, most notably a lot of baitfish. Clearly, as stated earlier, there's jacksmelt, and they're helpfully biting again, mostly. There's some anchovies around, and some of them are larger, meaning more useful than the previous batch of anchovies. 5" fish, not 3". Halibut will eat them all, but maybe not if you're hook weighs the tiny critter down. The pictured fish is, not a sardine, not a herring, but a shad. I've never fished a live shad for halibut, but considering how much halibut love the shad's cousins, sardines and herring, I'd guess a live shad would probably work.

    I received this picture in an email this morning: "Albacore are here" No info on where or what they bit, but other people have posted a few reports that seem to indicate the close water may not have fish in it, yet. The successful guys went far from here, 70+ miles. The 35 mile area looks good, and perhaps these fish came from there, but others have tried and failed. If I'm going to burn 50 gallons of fuel I'm looking for a better report or at least a good looking satellite picture with no catching info. Aw, who am I kidding. Costco gas station here I come. Thanks for the hope, Joe.

 

      I took a little time off this week and missed most of the action here, but luckily a few people sent me some reports. From Trip Plumb:  "Hope you had fun good trip south. 

Rich and I fished McClures Tuesday. 

23 lb Halibut on dead chovey. 10 rock cod with 2 lings .

Water 54" It looks like I missed some nice weather here. 54º water ain't warm but it's a little warmer than it's been. Nice fish. If you're only going to catch one target fish, make it a big one.

    Here's a good report from yesterday: "On Friday afternoon, over about 3 hours of fishing, my wife, Shelly, and I caught two halibut fishing the channel between Hog Island and the Bar on our little aluminum skiff, “Big Fun”(little boat, big fun). The first fish was a nice 27-incher; then, about an hour later, we got a monster 34-incher! (“monster” for our little skiff, anyway). Both fish were caught on frozen smelt using my Pops’s old steelhead spinning rod setup (now dubbed “Lucky”); one trolling south on slack tide, one drifting north on the tide. Tried throwing and drop-shotting jigs too, but the halibut showed no love for those (and at one point led to a tangled mess amongst the bait rigs…but hey, good opportunity for more field testing!). Anyhow, made for a stoke-filled afternoon! Pics attached. Thanks for the blog; always fun to read.

Cheers,

Darren" Nice work on the nice fish. Looks like fun. I notice a theme here in the colder water with dead bait outfishing the live ones (if you can get them). Good on ya for trying some different techniques because you never know what may be the ticket. I'm told that there's been some birds working on bait off and on the past week from Sand Point back to Tom's Point, so that should be a pretty good place to try, as mentioned here. The baitfish may not be catchable, but there may be a bitey halibut. 

     My cousin Ira McKern sent me this report, also from yesterday: "Did a 70 mile run up north of Pt Arena.  Caught 16 albacore and lost 6.  South wind kicked our ass.  15 hour day was a little much but we found fish.  A little slow with that low pressure I'm sure.

Bean bag chairs are bad ass by the way 😁" That's a positive report on Bodega albacore in August. We haven't had one of those for a while. There's hope! 70 miles is kind of a bit beyond far, though, and running 70 miles home against the south chop seems like no fun at all. But albacore! I guess I need the beanbag chair.

    I just got back from the August Eddie Kim 3-day Pacific Queen charter. That was a good time. Rough, but fun. Some pictures:

Mike and Cannon Brunkhorst soaking live squid for yellowtail.

Jason Li was on fire when flylining for bluefin. He even caught more than his dad, Eric Li. Don't worry, Eric did quite well, too.

Gage trying out his "Blue Steel" look with his 24 pound yellowtail on a yo-yo. Gage was unable to get a photograph of my 26 pound yellowtail as he was sleeping at that time....

The man, Eddie Kim, with the first kite fish of the trip.

This was John's first trip and he did pretty well. He outfished me on the flyline.

This was Cannon's first trip, too. 

Jason Li working a kite-hooked bluefin.

Gage with his kite fish, about 120#.

Eddie with his kite bluefin again, this time with Kayle Briles of Get Bit Charters. Kayle brought his own kite setup and helium tank so we were able to fish two kites at once. Double your pleasure.

Cannon caught his first kite bluefin. Methinks it won't be his last.

Robert Rath landed the largest bluefin not caught on a kite. His 80# gutted fish bit a sinker rig on the slide.

Cannon Brunkhorst, 11 (almost 12, he says) weighs 68 pounds. The fish he caught is about 150#. Gage is still hearing Cannon's footsteps, but now Cannon is in front of him. The crew were saying that Cannon did a better job fighting the fish than most people. Like a boss.

Jeff got drawn for the kite rotation and landed this nice specimen.

    I don't want to brag, but I took longer catching the smallest fish of the trip than Cannon took on the big boy. As it took me six hours to get my first and only bite, there was no way I was going to rush it, so the whole boat had to wait on me. Yeah, I'm that guy. 

Robert Rath won the big fish pot and a Stubborn rod for his sinker rig fish, edging out Larry Varela's 11th hour 76 pound sinker rig bluefin. 

Tom Brodsky also had his number pulled for the kite. Lucky number 13, I guess. 

     The bluefin and yellowtail bite had been on fire for the last couple of weeks at least, but as we arrived the wind kicked up and blew out the fire, it seems. It did build the sea up, and the forecast of eight foot seas by six seconds now seems overly optimistic. I was counting three to four seconds between crests and many of those waves on Cortez Bank were way taller than eight feet. Let's just say it was challenging. It was good to have a fun group of guys to fish with, as what could have been a problem was a good time if you could just hang on. And while the fishing was slow it was good enough to give you feedback about what was working and what wasn't. You don't learn technique when it's wide open or completely dead, you learn when it's somewhere in the middle. I failed to take my own advice and stuck to the same 30# leader and size 1 circle hook for six hours until I finally took the hint and retied with 25# leader and a size 4 (maybe 6?) tiny j-hook. Three baits later I caught a fish on my only bite. If what you're doing isn't working, try something else, and try it before six hours passes. I am a stubborn dumb@ss. 

    But I caught one. Finally.

 

    Most fishermen went without today. A few of the boaters were able to catch one. Steve Brott fished the beach and had to choose which fish to keep. Poor guy. He caught three halibut, I heard, but let the largest go because he thought the limit might be only one. It's two., as his wife yelled at him just after he released fish #2. Three came along. All is good. A few other caught fish today.

"Hey Willy. After 3 unsuccessful trips we finally had some success.  We were trolling hootchies with 6inch white grub tails and large tray herring. We landed a 33inch 14.5 lb halibut and lost another good fish right next to the boat. Those were our only take downs for the day, but we were very happy."

-Branden Mendoza

    Not much to post, at least as I'm concerned. I don't hear everything, or even half, really. But, I can say that Wednesday was pretty slow for catching. Thursday had one boat launch. Me and Gage. No fish. One bite,  but no stick is no fish. Wind. Water cold. Found 47.6º  water as we approached Doran. Didn't make it. Halibut will bite in cold water. They just don't want to. I'm not a good fisherman. I need needy fish. Not my vibe, as we say here in NorCal. But FYI, we're experiencing a June here now, in August. Again, the prediction that global warming will make wind blow more here (so sayeth the Bodega Marine Lab) seems to be coming true. Damn you, science! I was promised tropical fish! This whole global warming thing is disappointing, at best. Two stars. I can't even catch the regular fish. Maybe tomorrow? Maybe next week? It's really messed up, because it seems that Southern California is on fire. Bluefin, yellowtail, yellowfin.... just cast. It seems. We'll see....

   Another Saturday picture. I forgot to grab this this fisherman's name from the board yesterday, so today, we get to see Lawson Lawrence of Orangevale with his 21 pound halibut. I don't know where it bit, or what it bit, but I think Lawson here is pretty proud. His expression would make me very scared if I were a halibut, but I'm not, so, whew! Once again I'm glad to have my eyes one to a side. 

    Here's the kind of report I look for: "Hey Willy. Quick report from the Fish Dog boat. Friday we picked up 4 halibut and Saturday we got boat limits for 3, a little bonus striper and a safely released salmon. The salmon bit a live jack smelt in 12 feet of water at the bar. Besides losing a barn door through the net, we had a productive couple of days of fishing and fine tuning our gaffing skills. Plus, it was nice to have Robert floating alongside Saturday to video tape us boating our last 3 halibut to finish of our limits.

-Tyler Holland"  Nice work, Tyler and crew. Good job on putting Robert Rath to work. He loves it. Through the net sucks, but gaffing makes the process singular: You are using the gaff, and if you miss, YOU miss. That's one reason why gaffing is awesome. There's many others. But there's no excuses for failure, just explanations. Also, less points of failure with a gaff. One. Unary, one less than binary. I looked it up. Nice job, Tyler and crew, and apologies for wandering off on the gaff thing. But I love gaffing...

     Steve Cato caught this 18 pound halibut today. It bit a dead bait while he was jigging on the other side of the boat. Jigging works, but we accept all biters. Nice fish, Steve. But if Bud Adams is reading this, Steve still wants to fish with you. He can catch, but he still has more to learn, sensei. 

     The fishing today? No different than the last week. Hard. Catching was hard, too. This year we are experiencing wind. Wind isn't new here, but wind running into mid-August and beyond is unusual and unwelcome. The water is cold. The fish are biting, a little, in the cold, and there's probably more fish out there than we know, as cold fish mostly don't bite, but it ain't good with 52º water. The mornings are calm but by noon you should have accomplished whatever you set out to do, as things are going to get more complicated. Hog Island has been good for Mike Mack and crew but for the rest of us mere mortals the fishing sucks. There's a few fish dribbling in the bay, optomists hoping for a change in the weather, as am I, so the bar could light up on any day. It wasn't today, and by the way the wind is blowing today, it ain't tomorrow, either. Maybe Thursday? Don't hold your breath. The 10-day forecast is for more wind, dammit.