I got this report yesterday. Steve Brott reports, "Hello Willie,

Steve Brott here with a report.
New Years found me once again on the beach casting for the elusive striper which never materialized.
A young man named Liam came by wearing wader, pulling a wagon full of fishing poles, snares, etc.
He was very patient, but before my very eyes this young man snared a limit of legal dungies in rather short order.
I went over and introduced myself and told him he was the luckiest crabber on the beach that weekend, so i took his picture.
Turns out it was his first time ever to the beach.
He had a great time and I personally enjoyed watching him do his thing.
Thanks Willie, Kristi and i will be back the second week of February."  Thanks for the info, Steve, and good job, Liam. It seems that most of the crab snarers like the beach in front of the store, and that's fine, but the crab can be anywhere. Sometimes the crab are where it requires a little bit of walking. Go Liam. I hope you had a nice walk. And dinner. And probably another dinner. 

   Mr. Brott was looking for stripers here, and I haven't heard of any caught here for a while, but I did hear of a sighting of a feeding school in the surf below Oceana Marin, the fancy houses to the north of Dillon Beach proper. The guy that spotted them is familiar with stripers, so I believe. Also, there's herring moving in and out of the bay, and schooling baitfish tend to draw eating stripers. You can hear sea lions barking at all hours, another indicator of herring activity at the mouth. A third indicator would be that the same witness of the stripers also saw a school of herring getting ready to spawn near the shore where he was gathering cockles. His exact location was not given to me, as he was successfully gathering cockles, and as there aren't too many good beaches for cockles, guys that successfully get cockles don't share locations. See the rules for Fight Club. The fish didn't bite sabikis, but that is normal for spawning herring. After they spawn they can think about food again. Learn to throw a net, Ed. 

    Crabbing is still the same, okay for an experienced few and pretty slow for the rest (except Liam). This is that time of year when the bite should be slowing and approaching its slowest time. Crabs have started molting and some of them are clutching (mating) for sure, and soft skinned crab can't eat even if they wanted to. Patience. Wjem the crab return, all those crab that were just short will be keepers, and there were a lot of short "clickers".  Here's to the passage of time.