Gage and I went out in the south wind today to do a little scouting. We saw no bait in close from Tomales Point down to the top of McClure's. Then we ran out to 15 and 5 and saw only travelling birds along the way, no feeding. We did find a pod of humpbacks possibly feeding at 15 and 4 but we saw no biat there except for the faintest of lines of krill at 150' down. Then, as I had neglected to wear raingear and the spray was pretty cold and constant from the chop, we went back into the bay. 2.5 hours of trolling by Inverness later we had released three very short halibut. We had skipped past Hog as the water temp there closer to the high tide was only 53º when we passed by. By noon the outgoing tide had the water up to 59º. Also up was the south wind which had increased in strength there from earlier. We weren't able to find any schools of bait at Pelican Point but we did catch a bunch of shiners. Shiners aren't really our favorite bait, but we gave them a try. 

    Ninety minutes later we were done with fish from 10 to 17 pounds. We had to release one at the end as we had three fish in the box and then doubled. We missed another six or eight bites. We had to stop halibut fishing and catch more perch to finish. We may not be shiner perch fans but the halibut were today. It seems like the halibut may be coming in.

    Gage was grabbing a beer at the Boathouse around 5:00 PM when Jeff Tucker of Petaluma walked up from the beach with this 21 pound halibut. He caught it from the beach, this side of Sand Point (not the surf side), on a fluke drop shot rig. He also needs a larger ice chest if he's going to catch fish like this. Very nice job and fish, Mr. Tucker. It really seems like the halibut may be coming in.