Big swells today. not the largest ever but pretty damn big. We had a few break all the way down the middle of the bay. There was even a surfer riding them. 

     We got off light, yet again. It probably helps that we don't have a pier to destroy because most of the piers on Tomales Bay got busted up a week ago and today the end of the pier at Santa Cruz busted off. Big swell today and big tides and wind last week were bad for human-built things in the water. But, between the waves of hurt there was a window of opportunity where it turns out the crab were biting. Last Saturday one boat had 40 Dungeness inside the bay. They caught a few more on Sunday but not quite as well. A fellow today had a quick limit in the morning. They aren't jumbos. mostly, and the aren't pretty, mostly, but there's some keepers in the bay. And more good news, as it seems that traps will open at 8:01 AM on January 2. Commercial gear will hit water at the same time. They get to pull on the 5th. 

     The "King Tides" this week made for some excitement but not good crabbing. Good crabbing inside the bay generally requires slow currents, but the kings have some of the highest and lowest tides, and all that moving water makes for bad crabbing and lots of gear loss. Eight feet of water rushing out of the bay in seven hours makes for a pretty good river. People were still catching some crab, but not too many. As the moon wanes the currents should wane as well. The king tides did happen to arrive with a storm,.  perfectly timed to maximize damage. We were lucky enough to have purchased some large concrete blocks this summer for our parking lot. After seeing the forecast and tide table, we moved our blocks from the parking lot to in front of the store. They worked, and we were able to stay open and not even have to sandbag the doors. We lost more beach and the use of our webcam for a bit, but we got off light compared to many of the businesses and homes on the bay. When the front passed the wind switched from 50 mph from the south to 65 from the west. We get the worst of it from the south, so our neighbors further up the bay caught the brunt of it, as the long fetch built up some serious waves on top of the highest tide, low pressure and a big northwest swell pushing more water into the bay. Our only real damage was our webcam, as the waves washed out some of the dirt floor of our tractor garage, and sitting on that floor was the battery pack that ran the camera. Amazon is sending a new battery and the camera will live again. The blocks will probably stay until the storms chill. How long until April? 

    Commercial crabbing and traps will be opening soon. The recommendation to the honcho at CDFW is to allow commercial to start here at 50% of traps starting on the 5th. Your traps may start earlier or at the same time. Half gear means harder work for half pay for the commercial guys. I hope nobody gets hurt and no boats are lost. But I worry. 

    I was going to report that the outer bay was good for Dungeness after hearing a few reports. Then I heard a few more reports. So, I'll say that there's a possibility of good things in the outer bay, and also you can get skunked. Better than half of the fishermen I spoke to did poorly, but here's a report from George Homenko from last week that got me confused: "Went out off of Dillon Beach on Monday.  The mouth had a moderate swell and was breaking on the edges, but after you cleared the Tomales Bay Gong the sea condition were pretty nice.  Set 8 rings 50 to 60 feet of water with a soak of between 30 and 45 minutes and within two pulls we had two limits.  None of the crab were jumbos but they were Dungeness crab.  Bait varied from chicken legs to fish heads, didn't seem to make  to much difference.  We did flavor some rings using Scotties containing anchovies, squid and cat food.  That seem to help a little.

Set the same pots out side on opening day and a week later in the same places and got nothing except a lot of work hauling rings.  I think it definitely getting better from what I would call a dismal start.

By the time we picked up our gear we had over our two limits in less than two hours.  On the way back to Miller Park we checked with some of the crabbers inside the bay and it was much slower going.  Shared our smaller catches with them."  It is likely that the weather of a few weeks back may have pushed some crab in, although the reports from deeper water never seemed very good. For sure it wasn't the tsunami, as it we less than 1" here. Whatever it was that shook them loose for the guys that got them, cool. For the rest of us, keep moving the gear and a slow soak is generally better than a longer one. So, like voting, pull early and often.

     It seems that strange things are afoot. Albacore are being caught locally in December and with them, yellowtail. If you can find a kelp paddy or floating log early in the day, maybe a lot of yellowtail. North Bay Charters are lighting them up. Here. In December. Twenty yellowtail is a lot. They aren't giant but they kinda don't need to be. The water temps are maybe 58º at the higher end, which I guess is warmish for December (remember, our coldest water comes in May and June, so...) but it is officially not warm enough for yellowtail. At the same time, amateur and professional crabbers are both commenting that the relatively few Dungeness crab that they're catching are acting very sluggish and don't want to move around very much. The surface water ain't that warm, but perhaps the deeper water is warmer than it should be. The offshore warm water from Fort Bragg seems to have pushed down and in, with possible tuna sightings from reputable, knowledgeable people seeing tuna in 300' of water or even substantially less (150'?). Is it impossible to catch albacore over the shelf? No, just unlikely. My brother caught one once on top of Cordell in 200' of water. To be fair, he's really lucky, but still, it can be done. Maybe through a few feathers in while you're running for crab. You almost surely won't catch. But if you did.....well, you'll be boring your great-grandchildren with that story, as well as anyone that looks like they might fish. People will avoid you. You could be that guy. Good luck.

     CDFW will be evaluating their more recent whale data and deciding whether to allow commercial crabbing and traps or not. My guess is that probably not. The Preliminary Assessment and Management Recommendation from CDFW recommends a steady as she goes approach, no changes. A decision will be made in the next few days based off of this Recommendation and it's data. We shall see by Friday.

    In other bad news, salmon returns to the Sacramento River have been appallingly low. Minimum  numbers of eggs and spawners were not met. According to the methodology, this will mean that they were overfished, even without fishing. Good thing we didn't fish, eh? Pretty much every other river with a hatchery (that also trucked or otherwise enabled their smolts to avoid the river without water) has had really good to record returns. Some people say that trucking helps encourage a higher wandering factor in the smolts, and if true, that would account for the number of salmon showing up everywhere but where we want them. Lake Merritt? Really? There's no sewer outfall to swim up? Coleman Hatchery did truck smolts two years ago, and amazingly (not) they had a maybe decent number of jacks show up. We shall see what the real numbers are in March. We may get some kind of season if enough showed up at the right time. Not a good season, but I'll take almost anything. I'm tired of watching salmon jump while I'm halibut fishing. Officially, I am for a hatchery-only fishery, especially if that's the only way I get to salmon fish. Have the factories make lots of baby salmon, take off all their adipose fins, transport them past the river without water, and then let fishermen fish and only keep the ones without adipose fins. It has worked in other places. We aren't getting the water back for fish, wild or otherwise. Because money. So let's just figure out a way that we can go fishing.