Not too many people heading out now. It's kind of peaceful. Swampy stopped by yesterday for a relatively peaceful fishing trip, except for these two fish that rudely interrupted his revery: "Evening Willy,
Today’s Report: The big boned lady may be warming up her pipes but it ain’t over yet. Easy perch bait with a couple mackerel in the mix near pelican. Besides catching myself on my prop I got a couple eaters at 6 and 7 pounds. Great weather and another good trip to the bay. May have another trip in me, Swampy." Nice work, Swampy. I guess it ain't quite over. You can definitely hear a heavyset woman clearing her throat backstage, but she ain't singing yet. A diver tried the bar yesterday and saw zero halibut. Gage ended up with one and likely missed another bite. There's fish. Maybe not a lot, but not none, either. I don't know where Swampy caught his fish, but Gage said Swampy was moving around a lot, looking. That sounds right, because most of the few people fishing for halibut haven't been doing well since the weekend.
But Swampy's success got me to go this morning. Gage and I launched at 7:40 and crossed a peaky but not yet breaking bar to catch a quick 20 jacksmelt near the outer buoy. Inside the bay has been difficult for smelt, but outside is good if you can safely get there. There was some concern on our part, as easy bait usually means difficult catching, and vice versa. We went back to the bar and started in the head of the channel just inside from the shallowest parts, as those had now started to break. The tide was incoming, so we drifted away from danger, as one would. First drift, on the northern side of the channel, resulted in four missed bites. Gage and I had a quick conversation and determined that we suck. Three of the bites just took off running, and then.....nada. It seems difficult to me to not get a treble hook into an actively biting and running fish, but Gage and I figured out how to do it and repeat it. We went back for a second drift, but move a bit more south as a south breeze seemed to be pushing us more to the north. The breeze died, and we drifted the middle of the channel, and we had only one bite at the edge of the deep hole. But it stuck. One in the box. Back up for a third drift but this time, back to the northern edge of the channel.
Boom.
We barely got lines in when Gage hooked the second halibut. It got gaffed and boxed, and maybe three minutes later, Gage is on again. Then his second rod takes off. That fish came off, but soon after I placed his rod back in the holder, one of my rods took off. Double! And then we were done. 9:00 AM. Four fish seven pounds to 14 pounds. But we still had about ten smelt. We started back in and saw Richard Porterfield trying to catch bait by Buoy 3. We hooked him up with our bait and pointed him at the bar. When I saw him at noon I asked him how many? None for him, and he had to back to work, so he gave his bait to James Ludomila. A few minutes later I went to the Boathouse and saw James eating lunch. I think I called him dude when I yelled and told him to get out there! Tide change was listed at 12:20 and it was 12:15. The fish often bite at tide change. Guess what? James caught his limit in the next 45 minutes. Sorry for yelling, James, but I was excited. Like the Captain said on Hill Street Blues, "They're getting away out there." Well, he's right. And they won't last. Get 'em while you can. Supplies won't last.
