Gage sent my this photo today with this report: "Kenrick and Hugo and Karsten with a couple nice fish from the bar, drifting dead herring." This is one of the better reports as it has been pretty, well, bad. When Mike Mack and Spinner launch before 7:00 AM and return at 4:45 PM with only half limits of halibut (that's two for the boat) the fishing is slow at best. The guys that returned with nothing would say it was bad. As there's more of them than the Mike Macks out there, let's call it bad. That said, these smiling guys caught fish. Nice fish, as Gage said. That striper looks to be just about the right size to give a pretty good accounting of itself, and I'll bet there will be stories told of its fight for its life for some time. As it should be. Very good work, guys. Those fish should taste extra sweet.

   Branden Mendoza sent over this photo and report: "Hey Willy. We put in some time today to see what we could find. We trolled from Nick's cove to Inverness and back. Managed 6 shorts, 2 bat rays, 1 thresher shark that put on a hell of a show before ripping the line and finally at the end 1 keeper at 23". Nothing crazy but it made for a great dinner. We were trolling white hootchies behind flashers on all poles today. " What, no white sea bass? No stripers? It sounds like you hooked almost everything else. Sometimes (Often? Always? You make the call) action is its own reward. Bat rays are a tough reward, but a thresher is pretty cool. They can PULL. Generally harder than your gear will allow. Good onn you for your keeper. Keep dragging those white hootchies back there and you will be sending over white sea bass photos, eventually. Chartreuse works, too.....

     The best action over the last couple of days would on shallow water rockfish. It wasn't that good for the rockfish, as they still haven't recovered from the closures 25 years ago, but the salmon action was hot. You gotta release them, carefully, but the tug is the drug, as they say. Gage saw a photo of a fish that was 40+ pounds, easy. There's lots of salmon out there; the abbreviated two-day season proved that the hatcheries are (mostly)  doing their jobs. Can't we just target the ones that are being made for us? Just asking. But there's a reason I'm not rockfishing, as I can resist everything except temptation.