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.