Happy New Year! 2025 is over, for better or for worse. Gage and I had a pretty good year of fishing but it sure wasn't easy. Halibut was the main game here again last year and with no real salmon season to take the heat off of them, three years of abuse can be seen in the fish counts. Here's an average for the year of the fish per angler of the top eight halibut-catching charter boats in the bay area, according to Sportfishingreport.com:
2023 1.68
2024 1.36
2025 0.90
That's a 19% drop in the second salmon closure year, a 35% drop in the third salmon closure year, and about a 46% drop over three seasons. That's with a reduction in the limit from three to two in early 2023. I think that it's safe to assume that there's something like half the halibut numbers from 2022 in the shallow water we like to fish in. Deep water holds fish, but try catching them out in 100 to 200 feet. They're there, because the draggers catch them, but go blind drift ten miles of 150' of water over sand and tell me how many halibut you caught. It's a lot of area with some fish scattered around and not eating much because it is cold down there. As some of those deep water fish move into the shallows to spawn (or just warm up) we get a shot at them, so hope is not lost. Last year it seemed that Dillon Beach and the bar had the best numbers of fish, especially when the water was warm and the fish were moving around. Likely, many of these fish were moving in from some deeper location to enter the bay or shallows to spawn. I had my first experience with a male halibut trying to spawn on the female I'd hooked while I was trying to gaff her (sorry, dude, but right now she's just not that into you) on the bar this year. Gage had the same experience the same evening in a different boat. Definitely ladies arriving for business and guys hoping to party. There will be some fish this year, but it's going to be hard. Come on, salmon! Things are looking good for some kind of real(ish) salmon season this year, and the halibut need it.
Also, traps open tomorrow at 08:01 and the commercial guys aren't dropping quite yet due to a price "discussion" so I guess if you don't mind gale force winds you have a chance before they go. Good luck.
