Only ten days left of rockfish season, so with today's calm (but damp) weather Sam Winglewich decided to give the rockies a try. His report: "Hi Willy, I think Cameron got some snapshots of my lingcod situation 12/20. If not, use image below.

Twins, both 26". They liked redrums. Stomachs full of jacksmelt. 

The first hour of my trip was me, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at balls of what I thought were schooling blues 10ft off the bottom. Turns out, it was all schooling-blues sized smelt. I foul hooked it on a Hopps No Eql. Stick with bouncing bottom, folks." Your picture was better, Sam. Nice fish. Those smelt work pretty good for lingcod, too. Keep checking those schools, though, because sometimes they are blues, and finding schoolies is its own reward. 

    Crabbing continued to be fairly decent in the bay with a few limits and a few other boats catching "plenty." Beach snaring wasn't awesome but there were some keepers coming in. Traps are officially okay starting January 2 at 8:01 AM PST. Commercial guys will be dropping traps then, too. CDFW threw the commercial guys a bone and gave them only a 40% reduction in traps instead of the recommended 50% gear reduction. A bone ain't a hole pork chop, but it ain't nothing, either. 

     The saga of the overturned boat from last Friday continues. After being towed and re-anchored off of Dillon Beach the boat started drifting north, probably hearing the siren song of the American Challenger wreck. That's where the boat from the October 16 rollover ended up. Misery loves company, I guess. But the owner of this current boat showed up today around noon and launched a 12-14' rigid inflatable boat to tow his boat back in. It didn't work as planned. Upside down boats tow very poorly. It took two hours to tow the boat a mile and a half and then they ran into the outgoing current. When your maximum speed is maybe 1 mph and the current is running against you at 2 mph, you're in trouble. The inverted boat was left anchored near buoy "TB" in the channel, so Tomales Bay boaters beware. A second rescue attempt may follow, weather permitting.