Sorry, but I was out of town. Here's some reports, briefly, in no particular order, as I'm sort of brain dead right now...

    "Evening,

Saw some halibut caught today and got a couple in the boat as a well. Jake’s girlfriend (first time fishing) caught her first fish today, the smile says it all. Uncle Bob got his first limit with a 17 and 15 landed by Al who got  a clicker as well. Enjoyed a good day on the bay.

Swampy" Very nice, Swampy. This email was from Friday. Looks and sounds like some fish were caught. No reports of fish chewing the gelcoat off of boats, but fish, which still sounds pretty good. Nice work on catching, Swampy, but you're not supposed to be exposing young people to addictive things, like catching. Another poor soul following the path to tackle shop damnation....

    Branden Mendoza sent over these pictures and report: "Hey Willy. Got back on the water after some time off due to surgery. We did our usual flasher hootchie combo. Landed us a ton of shorts a giant bat ray and a nice 32 inch halibut. Overall a nice day and we were happy to be back out. Also managed to snag a mackerel on the sabiki. " Good to see you're back. Nice work on the keeper, as I haven't been able to catch anything but shorts in the back. If you catch another mackerel you might try trolling it while you're halibut fishing. The macks will troll alive all day if you don't pin their mouths shut and my first seabass bit a (drifted) mackerel. Halibut like them, too. Nice fish, sir.

   On Saturday sport salmon opened up north. While we wait until the 27th for salmon to open here, Mike and Mara Nursement went to Fort Bragg and put some pink meat in the bag. Says Mike, "200ft of water 60pulls 24oz weight watermelon flasher small and small watermelon apex." Yes, it's not here but soon it will be. And it looks like there's fish north and south of us, so it seems our chances of success will be good, weather depending. 

   

  Also on Saturday, Vicky caught this 25 pound halibut. I'm not sure of where or how, but halibut now outnumber white sea bass on the big fish board. 

   I'm afraid that this time I have no name or the weight of the fish but I do know that this striper was caught from shore, probably near Sand Point. I also know that surf stripers are the best. Well done, sir.

   When Eddie Kim texts you and asks if you want to go fish with him and the Pacific Queen Killers, you say yes. Then beg the wife to go. At least, I did, and begging works. Even luckier, the fortnight of no bluefin biting ended during our trip, as the New Lo-An found the fish late Thursday at a place called the Condom. We ran most of the day Friday from our yellowtail bite at the Coronados to almost the Cortez bank to get some blueys. It was good. I can still hear Eddie Kim yelling "Biter!", probably because he did it so often. After my drive home a team of locals assembled and we processed fish, ate sashimi and drank beer and champagne. It was good. And late.

    Also, this:

    

    Wow, check out that upwelling! The wind sucks (and there's been a lot of it) but it is fighting the "ocean heat wave" by bringing up that deep, cold water. Only once this year has the water temp dropped below 50º at the Point Reyes wave rider buoy and it didn't last. June is supposed to have the coldest water of the year here, and it does, but not as cold as it should be. That said, there should be enough upwelling and warming for the plankton to bloom and the anchovies and salmon smolts to eat, if not their fill, maybe enough. Water temps are tracking like in 2015, and if you want to know what that means you can look back on this very blog and see the reports. 2015 was a strange year, but another year like that might damage my shoulder from all the high-fiving. It's looking like a repeat, of sorts. Strange things are afoot in the parking lot of the Circle K. 

   I heard of a few fish inside the bay this week. There was at least one white seabass caught near Hog and Gage picked up a bass with stripes in the same vicinity, both on Wednesday. There's been a few halibut in the same area. There are occasionally catchable sardines and mackerel by Hog to use for bait but it hasn't been as consistent as one would hope. Those sardines would probably make great salmon bait when the time comes. They're blue label-sized beauties, when you can find them. Crabbing has been really bad in the outer bay and down and Ten Mile for Dungeness but a few are still being caught inside the bay. Not many, but any is better than what I've heard from outside. 

 

   Malachi Curtis sent over a new report today; "Back on the water with my dad Monday and after a slow day with a few missed takedowns I finally connected with my first halibut, 29 incher around 1:30. Monkeys off the back now so hopefully we can get a few more." If you had a good time catching that fish, Malachi, and it looks like you did, you may have just switched monkeys. Welcome to the club. Success is addictive, or at least, that's what Gage tells me. There's not a lot of halibut out there after three years of abuse, but there's still some volunteers willing to bite and the reports I've heard aren't bad, but aren't good. There's some fish, and a few guys are getting them. The bite has been from Tom's Point down to Marshall. I've heard of a few limits. Please note the scar on Malachi's halibut, lower left. It appears this halibut may have pulled through a gaff at some point in it's past. Or a diver's spear. I think that when we start repeat catching the same fish, the fish bucket is getting low. I expect a few more will venture into the bay from outside, as the bait seems to be coming in (in tiny schools) but the ocean has been reported to be pretty barren. Halibut, like many fish, prefer eating to not, so it seems that some of the hungrier models may find their way into our neighborhood.

    

 Here's a report from Malachi Curtis: "New to the Tomales game but we are slowly figuring it out, really appreciate your blog. We got these striper and shark on Wednesday. Stripers were 28.5 and 30.5 and the shark was just under 49. Shark was release but the striper came home. It was a slower day for us but the striper both bit within 30 seconds of each other. The halibut continue to elude us but yesterday I caught a 6 inch coho smolt while jigging up bait. Didn’t get a photo as I wanted him to get on his way asap. "  Good call on returning the coho ASAP. My friend Mike has released several this week while catching bait. They're so cute with their googly eyes. Efforts to bring back the coho on Tomales Bay creeks have been fruitful but number targets have yet to be met, so not considered successful. But the number of smolts in the mix of baitfish make it seem like their efforts are working. That, or there aren't many baitfish. Maybe both... But nice job on the stripers. They do seem to move through in small packs, and often one fish means several are around. The halibut have been beat up the last three years and catch numbers have plummeted. There are still some fish but hard work and luck are necessary. Mostly luck,  but grinding has its place. As I was a grinder for a long time, let me explain that grinding in the fishing sense is to fish dawn to dusk (or similarly long times) in order to catch some fish. Grinding is good when you're learning, because you have to, but also because, if you're paying attention, you start seeing and doing the things that improve your catch. It took me forever and I'm not done figuring it out. 

     I took Mike Nursement out fishing on Thursday. It rained on us for the first part of our day and was blowing pretty stiff out of the southeast for the whole day. We went to the bait spot at Pelican Point and caught, after 45 minutes, one coho smolt. That not being acceptable bait by any measurement, we gave up on drifting liveys and went farther back to Marshall where we trolled up twenty-ish short halibut and one 12 pounder. Mike wanted everybody to see his gaff job, as it was center-of-mass of the head. It was a good shot, and especially important as it was the only keeper bite we got. There are a few keepers out there but as far as I can tell they ain't thick on the ground.

      I really need to remember to check my email before posting, as I miss some good reports. Here's the actual whole report from the Cooastodian, rather than my thumbnail I reported yesterday:

     According to Richard, "Hi Willy 

My friend Owen likes to fish and had never pursued halibut.

He figured it out pretty well, coaxing these two in the boat with the help of two live mackerel. 

The one smelt I foraged was also converted into a large fish.

Together we boated over 36 pounds of fish. I told him yer gonna need a bigger ice chest.

The weather Sunday was much preferred over Saturday. The light drizzle washed the skunk off nicely."  Nicely done, Richard and Owen. These halibut aren't quite jumping in the boat this year, but you guys are going to give people the wrong impression.  Well, that's good for my business, so keep at it. 

    I got this photo from Mike Nursement this morning. "Good morning, this guy told me they got bigger yesterday and a 28' striper" The pictured fisherman had a bucket with several barred and redtail perch in it. The big sandcrab molt hasn't happened yet, but it is coming soon (probably sometime in the next five weeks) and the surfperch fishing should get even better. 

 

    

   I didn't get this gentleman's name but his leopard shark yesterday weighed 18 pounds. Not pictured, his halibut from the day before also weighed 18 pounds. I was hoping to weigh in another 18 pound something today from him but I don't think he fished. The would probably be pushing his luck, as the fishing hasn't been awesome, especially with the south wind yesterday. Yesterday most boats had zeros for halibut, a few had one, and Mike Mack came in with two for three fishermen. Today, Mike had two on the boat again, but he tied in numbers with....

   .... Patty O'Hair, who fished with the Nursements. Patty's fish weighed 10 and 14  pounds. Live bait, drifted, killed these fish. Well. Patty killed them, really, but she used livre bait like a weapon.

     I got this photo from the Coastodian this morning with the message, "15 year old first halibut. Live mackerel" That's a nice starter halibut. I hope it lit a fire. I've heard of a few live mackerel catching halibut recently, and it shouldn't be a surprise. Small, tasty, calorie-rich fish tend to be fast because they have to be. Everything wants to eat them. Be fast or get eaten. Or even, be fast and still get eaten, but at least the thing that ate you is winded now. Mackerel make fantastic live bait but for fish slower than tuna or jacks it is sometimes necessary to hobble the little sprinter to make it catchable for the target fish. I've caught more halibut on injured mackerel than spry ones.  

     Normally I like to use birds as indicators of fish activity. Boats can work, too. Commercial salmon opened yesterday and last night the horizon in front of Dillon Beach looked like the photo above. Somebody caught some salmon here, it seems. But good enough to stick around for another day? Likely another, better bite will turn up.

    Except, here's tonight's picture of the horizon. I think Carol Anne said it best, "They're here." Awesome. Good for the commercials, as they have had a hard time. I hope they get them. But we have to wait for five weeks for our start. Conditions will change, and change again, and probably again. There's no telling what awaits us on June 27, but I'm hoping for goodness. It might even happen. 

     Last thing, as an afterthought. The crabbing usually starts to pick back up this time of year, but this year, after it slowed down around the clutch and molt, it then...got worse. At least it did "on the beach", in the shallow, less then 100 feet of water crabbing in Bodega bay and Ten Mile. And you can't even leave a trap out for a week to see if you can scrape one up with a long soak as traps closed at 6:00 PM Friday night. 

   There's somebody that's been saying there's no fish in the bay. Wait, that was me. As I've said to my wife many times, I was wrong. (Many times... Still married, though, so...) Morgan Young and his crew say that there's fish to be caught, because they did catch them. Well, to be true, there were fish to be caught for them, but after they caught 26 fish, including stripers to 19 pounds and halibut to 23 pounds, well, there's probably still fish to be caught but less of them. This was over four days, but three of those days were really crazy windy. I'd say nice job, but it was way better than that. Damn.....

     .....and speaking of damn, that's not quite what Gage said when he saw this picture this afternoon. Ed Parsons caught a 22#, well, not supposed to say the word, so let's call it a seabiscuit. It bit a live sardine. Your results may vary. And will. The seabiscuit club is very hush-hush about details. They're not wrong, as pressure equals less fish, but hey, here's a photo of a happy dude. Nice job Ed.

 

 

      A good fisherman will work a spot in which he knows he will have success for a long time. Gage worked this one for seven years and finally set the hook yesterday. That is skill, or at least he says it is. It turns out that there is something that Gage loves more than fishing. Congratulations Gage and Amanda!

      The wind howled at the Landing (and most of the rest of the coast) this weekend. Combined seas hit 18 feet and the water temp dropped to 49.5º at the Point Reyes waverider buoy. Good for the salmon but a bad time for anyone on the coast. Of course, the windy weather happened to land on some very low tide days. There was one boat that rolled over this morning just off the beach on their return from the clam islands but water conditions contributed less to the incident than did boat overloading. Were they okay, you ask? Well, luckily they had attached their life jackets to their plastic "single use" shopping bags full of clams, so when the boat rolled over the clams floated safely and the poorly-swimming clammers could cling to deployed  life saving devices, even if that was not the designers intent of use. My suggestion would to be use the PFDs as designed, you know, wear them, but I guess whatever floats your boat. Or keester. The big tides also kept the crab count low, as high currents generally equal low crab counts in the bay. Fish counts today were like crab counts. Maybe tomorrow....

 

     Doug took this photo today. Small fish weighed 17 pounds and the larger, 25. Two halibut may not seem like a lot, but when the weather forecast says "Gale Warning" and you can successfully catch a few fish before high-tailing off the water before the big, big winds get there, it's a lot. Two really nice fish, to boot. 

      The wind is blowing, as it should in May, but this bit should dies out after the weekend. The wind is cooling off the water and will hopefully upwell some nutrients that will jumpstart the food chain of the California Current, as the reports from the ocean have been sorta sad in the salmon department. The commercials have had two "cycles" to fish now and did okay on the first and mostly less so the second. The wind didn't help the second opener's success, but I felt pretty good to hear one of Gage's friends refer to the fishing conditions as "Victory at Sea." I'm not sure if he's seen any of those old shows, but I guess he's probably heard old fishermen saying it, and I mean old, because that's before my time, too, and I feel pretty old. The commercials have caught an estimated 26152 salmon out of their 83000 fish quota for the summer season. Most of the fish caught have been north, Bodega to Point Arena, heavy on the Point Arena. They have two more fishing cycles in which they can fish that area before they have to wait until August 1. It is very unlikely they will fill their quota before the end of the month, so after May they will be restricted to fishing south of Pigeon Point until August 1. It hasn't been awesome there for them, or really, anyone, but this wind may reset the table and send a few fish and feed that way. Historically, by the end of June it should be winding down down there, so the upwelling may be too little, too late, but if nothing else, seeing what actually happens will be interesting, at least to those of us playing along at home.

     Unsurprisingly, crab traps will close at 6:00 PM on May 22. We got an extra month of traps over the commercials in our zone, so don't complain. The whales will be here, probably, until December (they have Christmas obligations elsewhere I guess) but traps for crab will reopen when Dungeness season closes. Why, you ask? Ask me in person. What I posted is public knowledge on CDFW's website. I'd rather not post info some anti-fishing jackhole individual can use against me. But I'll tell you in person. Just know that even though CDFW seems like they're trying to close everything down, they also leave open stuff that hasn't been targeted by groups. It's either bureaucratic incompetence or some people still pulling for fishermen and I go with option two, not just because I'm a suck-up but also because I believe that there are people there, still, with our (and their, really) best interests at heart. Thank you, fellow fisherpersons. Anyways, here's the official press release about crabbing from CDFW:

Recreational Crab Traps Restricted in Central Management Area to Protect Whales from Entanglement while Commercial Dungeness Crab Fishing Opportunities Continue  

California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Director Meghan Hertel has assessed entanglement risk under the Risk Assessment Mitigation Program (RAMP) and announced a crab trap restriction in the recreational Dungeness crab fishery in Fishing Zone 3 (Sonoma/Mendocino County Line, 38°46.125' N. Latitude to Pigeon Point, 37°11' N. Latitude). This change, which will go into effect at 6 p.m. on May 22, 2026, is intended to minimize entanglement risk as humpback whales return to forage off the coast of California. 

A crab trap restriction was implemented in Fishing Zones 4 and 5 (Pigeon Point to Point Conception, 34°27' N Latitude) on March 27, 2026. CDFW reminds recreational crabbers that take of Dungeness crab by other methods (including hoop nets and crab snares) is allowed through the close of the season. All open Fishing Zones remain under a Fleet Advisory for the recreational Dungeness crab fishery. CDFW also reminds all fishery participants to implement best practices as described in the Best Practices Guide. 

The commercial fishery remains open in Fishing Zones 1 and 2 (California/Oregon border to the Sonoma/Mendocino County line) under existing trap reductions and depth constraints. Fishing Zones 3-5 (Sonoma/Mendocino County line to Point Conception) have transitioned to use of authorized Alternative Gear (aka Pop-Up gear) through the remainder of the season. 

CDFW anticipates the next risk assessment will take place in early June 2026. For more information related to the risk assessment process, please visit CDFW’s Whale Safe Fisheries page. For more information on the Dungeness crab fishery, please visit wildlife.ca.gov/crab. 

 

    There were a bunch of birds working bait entering the bay yesterday. A couple of stripers were caught in the mouth of the bay. My guess is that bait entering the bay was anchovies, as pinhead anchovies were pretty thick around the yellow weather buoy this evening. I dropped a sabiki in the schools three times and caught six anchovies each time. I couldn't catch a halibut in my 40 minutes of trying but the water temp was not the worst and the bait is there. Low tide will probably equal a fish or two. It seems. Sardines in Inverness, mackerel in Marshall, and anchovies at Hog Island. The ocean is kinda short on baitfish and as it cools in the windiest and coolest time of year a portion of the baitfish move into the    bay. Good for us. The fish follow. Probably. Time will tell. 

      Not too much happening here now. Things are coming. Salmon, good halibut, wsb? A man can dream. As for the now, crab is slow but slowly picking up. Halibut? Yes, Virginia, there are halibut in Tomales Bay. Not a lot, but something. Gage and I gave it a try yesterday and got our limits after four hours. So we caught a keeper an hour, and that seems pretty good, but we've had nothing to fish for in the last three years so halibut are kinda screwed as we've been concentrating on them. One of my idols, Frank Green, calls salmon "carp", as they were relatively easy to catch compared to halibut. Now, I've had my hard times catching salmon, so I'm not going to call them out as easy, but Frank said it, so... it must be. Beyond Frank, Tom Stienstra wrote a book about fishing in California and gave Tomales Bay a rating of 5 out of 10 as far as fishing.  When I read it I was pissed. Tomales is not that bad! Then I spent a little more time  fishing here and realized it ain't  easy. After thirty years trying I have found a few things that seem to work, here. There? I don't know. Never tried. Probably not, as I hear that big currents are bad for fishing in SF bay but here.... I can't tell. Less water movement here, as there's much less water. The fish are hard here, as it's an overly fished farm pond. But there's fish here. Gage and I saw no less than three sea lions eating halibut on Thursday, one on the bar, one at Marshall, and one with a huge halibut at Tom's Point. Our big ones were 12 and 14 pounds (mine was bigger. ) The fish aren't thick on the ground, nor should they be after the last few years of abuse. But there's fish.

   Aside from those fish, just know that there's been a few guys that have had their crab pots impounded by CDFW lately. One had his buoys improperly marked, as in the GOID numbers were faded. Don't let this happen/ Pens are  cheap. Another had his collected because his bouys were too big on his pots..... What? As I read the rules, there's a minimum size (5" x 11") on pots (plus a red 3" x 5") and a maximum on hoops (6" x 14") but no maximum on traps. CDFW was trying to write tickets for laws that don't exist. Why? Because the rules are so convoluted nobody knows what the hell is going on. And they wonder why license sales are falling.... I don't blame the cops. They're trying to enforce the same rules that you and I find confusing and their brains work similarly. Learn the rules for what you're doing. It ain't optional. The laws are complicated. It is easier to quit. Don't. Let the rules drive out the soft. The few that remain will benefit.

 

Gage found a keeper in the surf on his lunch break. It bit a Kastmaster. There's a few around. 

Cameron and I went out fishing after work and caught one keeper halibut and released a dozen shorts by Inverness. Not awesome but dinner tomorrow for my mother-in-law, so not nothing for sure. Also, Cameron had forgotten about early season halibut action and sullen went to smiling pretty quick with four bites in five minutes. It was never as good again, but when is it, ever. There's fish, and there's keepers,  but they're not awesome unless you're fishing here when they are biting. We hit an awesome patch. Good times.

 

     I may have to change the name of this blog to the Branden Mendoza Report. His report from yesterday: "Hey Willy we made a late run today. Got out on the water at about noon. Trolled from hog Island down to Marshall. We hooked 3 shorties and one keeper 28". We ran our usual flashers and hootchies." Very nice job, sir. I haven't heard of a ton of fish in the bay but there are fish being caught and some of them are actually big enough. It's still early and it should improve.

      This boat was spotted off of Tomales Point today. Does this mean the squid are here? Well, somebody who has a job chasing squid thinks it's a possibility. And, sooner or later, there probably will be some squid. 

       Commercial salmon season has opened as of May 1. Catching, so far, has been slow, been the weather has limited their options. Tomorrow the weather looks good so hopefully the commercials can figure out where the fish are, if there are any in concentrations above a handful. It may be that we all have to wait for the late season for the fish to really come in, or maybe the late season will have water too warm for salmon. Or maybe the water will be warm and the salmon are okay with it but we're all distracted with other fish that warm water provides. Or maybe we just wait and see. 

 

    Gage isn't the only one catching some halibut in Tomales Bay. Branden Mendoza sent over this report: "Hey Willy. Went out for our first troll of the season today. Trolled from hog Island to Inverness for two shorts and one 24 1/2in halibut. We ran dodgers with hootches trailing. We called it a successful first trip." As you should. Catching is success. Nice work. I heard of no other fish over the weekend, but i also saw very very fee boats out trying for halibut. Crab was king again, at least as far as effort. Catching? Maybe shoulda been halibut fishing. Dungeness is still very slow in the bay. Halibut ain't on fire, but.... I guess that in my mind a halibut skunk is easier to take than a crab skunk, and right now both are possible so my ego wants the easier one. 

     Also, there's some bait entering the bay. Not as much as one would want (it almost never is) but there's small critters, if the birds don't eat them all. Check out this video from a drone yesterday. You've seen birds working before, I'm sure, but this was off of Dillon Beach, and as the tide ran out the birds followed the fish into the bay. Where we want them.  Link: https://youtu.be/1zES8uA8DD4?si=P8rBhpjMEbww8Xon

     Gage is declaring halibut season a go on Tomales Bay. I guess it only takes one him catching one to make it official in his mind, but he did catch a keeper in the bay this morning. There were several other halibut caught, one close to legal, the rest so small as to be clearly short and not boated. The "close-to-legal" is a guess, as he was an attempted boat flip and unintentional release. Still, not a bad day on the bay, and fish are present. We didn't get bit until we hit 60º surface temp water which had made its way as far as Hog by low tide today. We had a sabiki out while we trolled and ended up with a half-dozen jacksmelt and three sardines. Sardines are......interesting. We only saw a few little clumps of bait, so it ain't thick, but maybe it will be? It's nice to dream. I think that the one-acre school of bait we saw coming in last Thursday was partially sardines and they have spread through the bay in a layer so thin as to be unremarkable. Yet I remark. I love live sardines for bait. Best. Bait. Ever. Cross your fingers, consult your God, whatever, but hope for more. Putting a live sardine on your hook on the bay is like putting a quarter in a vending machine in the store lobby in 1985. You're gonna catch something. 

     Dungeness crabbing has started to slowly pick up, so that's why the commercial season is being closed. Or, it just seems like that to the commercial guys with traps. They have to have their gear retrieved by 6 PM April 30. Sport traps will remain acceptable in our area until we told otherwise, but probably in May. The strange reason why we are allowed to use traps and the commercials aren't is because some of the commercial guys went ahead and purchased so-called "ropeless" gear that they could theoretically use when whales were around without entangling a cetacean. Theoretically because they haven't had many opportunities to use this gear yet, and considering what they paid for it, they're a bit anxious. So, the whales aren't really here, but they could show up soon, and these guys paid a bunch of money and were promised an opportunity, they get to go and we get to go, until whales are actually here, and then it'll be just them and us with hoops. Clear as mud.

    On the subject of simple regulations, salmon will be open here from June 27 through July 22, and then reopen again on August 1 through August 31, unless the quota of 34,900 salmon are caught or are close to being caught. The quota is for the area between Gualala and Pigeon Point, so it includes the San Francisco Bay area, Half Moon Bay, and Bodega and Tomales Bays. Last year, 14,000 salmon were caught in four days. If fishing is good, the season will not make it to the end. On the other hand, the Great Blob of 2026 is happening, creating a marine heat wave that is, well, precedented, but certainly alarming. It looks a lot like 2015. That year was tough fishing in the shallows as the water surface temps hit 65º by late July. Bad for salmon but good for yellowtail, bluefin, bonito, and white sea bass. So maybe we'll get a full season for salmon because we can't catch them. Seems about right. They're catching more bonito in Santa Cruz right now than salmon, so.... Also, San Diego boats are catching yellowfin and dorado like it's late August. Things are messed up. Welcome to California.  

 

Jules Rodrigues of Patterson CA, on her first ever saltwater fishing trip, showed the boys how to catch a sea bass. Hooked this guy around 10:30 south of Hog in about 30' of water trolling a dead, "very old" anchovy, and landed him after a 10 minute fight. Nice work on your 38 pounder, Jules. It's generally not that easy.

    Mike Nursement found an almost keeper halibut closer to Marker 5 than Hog Island last Monday. It bit a frozen anchovy as the jacksmelt wouldn't bite for him. No keeper for him, but a halibut of any size north of Hog in April is pretty exciting.

    The Coastodian picks up a lot of trash along the coast, and while tossing some of his collection  at Miller Park he spied these halibut carcasses in the dumpster. That's a hopeful sign as well. Then he called me an hour or so later to ask how big a white seabass needed to be. Unfortunately his was 27" and the minimum size is 28".  This fish also bit a frozen anchovy. I detect a pattern.... He also caught a few jacksmelt and mackerel which didn't work as good as that frozen anchovy. 

 

     Regular viewers of this report will recognize this hand, if not this particular fish. This picture is from yesterday, about an hour before the turn of the tide. Yes, the redtails are biting. If you suspected that there may be complications, yes, most of the fish being caught from the beach are jacksmelt and walleye perch. But, clearly, there are walleyes (at least one is confirmed, photographed, and released) and I'm told there was more than one caught and less than a limit. There have been some stripers caught off of Sand Point  (Sand Nub? There ain't much point there). I tried from a boat today, thinking that I'd have more options and a better chance of success. Not so. There were a few birds diving when I got there but they quit and bailed out. An hour after I left the day beach out to the bar (the shark pit to surfers) went off with birds pounding the water over several acres for 90 minutes. Brutal. From the surf line out to to the bar there were birds happily gobbling up baitfish. I think the bait is coming in. Early. It's an early year. When I launched the water was 58º, which is scalding in April. I'm starting to think that the quotas for salmon may not be met, as hot water equals few salmon caught. My early suggestion for this season: If you're not beating your weights against the rocks or mud you'll not have to worry about cleaning salmon blood off your boat. For salmon, deeper is colder, and colder is happier, to a point. Also, structure is food when school bait can't be found. We shall see. All will be revealed, but only on the timeline reality chooses. 

    Crabbing in the bay? Really bad, or pretty good, depending on who you talk to. Strangely, the people saying it's good seem happier. Maybe they're just happy people. Maybe good things happen to people that think good things will happen for them. Or, luck. Probably, success brings smiles. But mostly inside the bay has been really hard to catch. Some are being caught, and few fishermen are doing very well, but mostly people are trying and not catching. But. A not insignificant number of the crab being caught are hollow, pretty Hollywood crab, which means that they just molted. Soon, large enough crab will be appearing in your traps or hoops, as they have made completed their change.. 

 There's a salmon season this year! Not the one you want, but hopefully the one you need. What does that mean here? Well, not much or a lot, depending on a lot of variables. The San Francisco season, which includes Bodega and Tomales Bays, will be from June 27 to July 22, and August 1 to August 31, depending on the outcome of the 34,900 fish limit for the area. Early limits equals early closure, so be careful what you wish for. I always want to do better than the boats around me, but this year the competition is on for real. Cool. That seems like a big number but when you see how many fish were caught in a few days last year the number gets smaller. Maybe more days equals less effort? Pro. bably not  after three years of pretty much no season at all. There's a separate season in September but i fear that this year's prediction for a super-El Nino may screw up a September and October salmon season. For catching salmon, at least. Smart people are calling for a repeat of 2015. San Diego sportboats are just now catching August fish in April, namely yellowfin tuna and dorado,. Seems like the guys that are paying attention might be right. White seabass! Bluefin! Even a few very scattered yellowtail! What a year! I've never learned as much about fishing as I did in 2015, and I learned not nearly enough. I didn't know what I was seeing most of the time. Pay attention to what is going on around you. Read SoCal fishing discussion boards. We will be SoCal. Learn it. I'll give tips but I ain't gonna give up everything I learn. Why should I steal your joy from learning the same things? This year is a big opportunity. Treat it as such. 

   This poor little feller washed up on Dillon Beach today. This young California sea lion died of something probably besides a shark, but was nibbled on nonetheless. How do you know you don't like it until you've tasted it? Well, now we know. If it ain't wiggling it ain't as yummy. Or so it would seem. But those are teeth marks. So surfers, beware. We all know that Uncle Bigbite is out there, and he's been noshy lately, but this year he's been really hungry. Please don't be that guy. Or this guy in the picture. 

     There was another striper caught off of the Sand Point yesterday, by a fly fisherman if I heard correctly. Gage tried yesterday evening and caught nothing. It is fishing, and surf fishing at that. Not much else going on here but the rain this weekend.  But elsewhere...

    So, rumors of a "super El Niño" this year are growing, although an actual ENSO positive situation remains to be seen. It is forecast but has yet to resolve. The Blob is here and is warming waters, mostly by preventing most of the onshore winds of spring. There's been some windy days this year but not nearly as many as normal. It's kinda cool. SoCal water gurus are calling for a repeat of 2015. If you are unfamiliar with the importance of this, read this report from 2015 from July through October. Lots of white seabass. And similar things are happening this year. Yesterday the Shogun long range boat out of San Diego caught yellowfin on day one of a three day trip. Today they caught a dorado. These are August fish, if you're lucky. April seems awful early for August fish. Maybe this is 2015 redux. Salmon sucked in 2015. We needed this last year. Well, like someone once said, you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.

 

Gage and I tried for halibut yesterday, trolling 40 to 60 feet of water on McClure's and the Keyholes for four hours for no bites. We left and went rockfishing off of Ten Mile. First stop we found schooling fish and limited on nice canaries within five minutes. Vermilion limits took another ten minutes. Then we moved around a bunch looking for schoolies as we are picky and school fish clean easier than the spiky devils. Another hour and we quit with seven black rockfish and three lingcod to join the orange fish and returned more than we kept, mostly browns, coppers, canaries and vermilion. We stopped by the sand point (what's left of it) and tried for stripers for no bites but heard later that one was caught from shore there just before we arrived.  

 

I didn't check my email before I posted last night and missed this report from Danielle Magenheimer: "21 inch Striper caught by swim bait over the weekend ".  Finally a surf striper. That's two fish pictures in two weeks. It's busting wide open! Or something.  Good work on the fish. There aren't many of them, yet.

   So there were some more halibut caught in the bay this weekend. I've learned a bit, and it turns out, whatever I say is probably crap, as it seems my prediction model has failed this year, but failed in the way you want it to fail, as in it under-predicts. There are halibut being caught now in Tomales Bay, not many, and not good, but fish, and some of them legal. So it's not that there's no fish, it's just mostly bad. Longer days will will bring better odds and success. Ocean rockfish is open and they're biting, deep and shallow. Shallow are fun, and deep are more numerous and more expensive to get to (gas prices) so good for them. 

   In the halibut realm, I heard of a keeper by Inverness and a witnessed lost jumbo by a kayaker at Hog in the last few days. I don't think that, makes halibut "Game on!" in Tomales but it bodes well. The good times are coming, although I don't think that three years of no salmon and all halibut bode well for an awesome halibut year. All halibut and no salmon make Jack a dull boy, and makes a fish that reproduces and grows very slowly a punching bag for sport fishermen eager to catch something. I'm totally guilty of that, and three years of laser focus on halibut have made us pretty good halibut fishermen, way better than before when we had other distractions. We still caught pretty regular last year, but that's because we fished for halibut. Every. Day. Or pretty much that much. And at a certain point, we left the bay as the easy water had been played out. It will be worse this year, probably. Or not, it's fishing, but it seems to me that too much pressure on one fish leads to, well, less fish. That sucks for all of us. I hope that we get a relatively decent salmon season, both for my sake and for the poor halibut. Because I learned some things last year, and I can't share them, nor should I, as if they're good for me they'd be bad for halibut in general if the word got out. Okay, here's the biggest thing I learned last year: If you've ever seen rockcod suspended over a rock in shallow water, you can use the same knowledge to see suspended halibut feeding actively over a sand bottom. Who knew that dropping in an actively feeding, out of the sand halibut would result in multiple hookups? I've only seen it a few times. but holy crap, they bite. Don't tell Gage I said this.

 

Zachary caught the first Hog Island halibut I've heard of this season. It was 23 inches long. Happy Birthday, Zachary. Being a year older today probably made the difference and got that halibut to bite. Nice job Zachary! And good work for your support group. 

     You can tell that we are entering the time of year that has the really good clam tides, as the California Department of Public Health has issued a press release, repeated here by CDFW: 

"CDPH Warns Consumers Not to Eat Sport-Harvested Bivalve Shellfish from Marin and San Mateo Counties

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is advising consumers not to eat sport-harvested mussels, clams, scallops, or oysters from Marin and San Mateo counties.

Dangerous levels of paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxins have been detected in mussels from Marin and San Mateo counties. The naturally occurring PSP toxins can cause illness or death in humans. Cooking does not destroy the toxin.

PSP toxins affect the nervous system, producing a tingling around the mouth and fingertips within a few minutes to a few hours ​after eating toxic shellfish. These symptoms are typically followed by loss of balance, lack of muscular coordination, slurred speech and difficulty swallowing. In severe poisonings, complete muscular paralysis and death from asphyxiation can occur.

This warning does not apply to commercially sold mussels, clams, scallops, and oysters from approved sources. State law permits only state-certified commercial shellfish harvesters or dealers to sell these products. Shellfish sold by certified harvesters and dealers are subject to frequent mandatory testing to monitor for toxins.

You can get the most current information on shellfish advisories and quarantines by calling CDPH’s toll-free Shellfish Information Line at (800) 553-4133 or viewing the recreational bivalve shellfish advisory interactive map. For additional information, please visit the CDPH Marine Biotoxin Monitoring web page. "   

    So you can still dig clams here. You just can't eat them. Apparently, across Bodega Bay in Bodega Harbor it is in Sonoma County and the PSP neurotoxin stops at the county line, so good to go for digestion. According to the press release, clams have not actually been tested. I may dig some up for testing if the State wishes and if a good test would clear the clams. To be determined. But for now, don't eat the clams from here.

     Here it is! Halibut time in Tomales is here! Well,.....no. San Francisco Bay has started in the last couple of weeks and we're generally 4 to 6 weeks behind them.  We're coming. This 16 pound halibut was caught today in the ocean, where they always are. This fish required around five hours to catch it. That ain't good, and this was Gage, and most of us aren't Gage (Thank Jesus. One is insufferable). So, they're coming, but it ain't time yet. This is a sneak peek. Soon, my friends. 

     

   Maybe not the best picture, but it's a picture of a surf-caught steelhead from Dillon Beach, so it really doesn't need to be the best. Statistically, this is lightning striking someone twice in two days in different locations. More people die every year from lightning strikes in the US than people catch steelhead here. Way, way more. Thanks for the picture, Doug, and man in the picture, well, should have bought a lottery ticket. I mean, good work and all, but I'd take the money and blow it on fishing, you unicorn-grasping fellow. Finally a fish picture without Gage! There are a few surfperch being caught now and some jacksmelt inside the bay but we're still waiting for the good stuff to start later on this season. They're coming. I'm already tying up leaders. 

     On the crabbing front, things may be turning, as they should by the calendar. Outside, the few commercial guys still fishing (the ones I know have already stacked their gear as the crab versus diesel math didn't work out in their favor, but they still talk to the other guys, and luckily, me too) have started picking up enough crab to actually pay the diesel bill, plus some. Part of that is that Dungeness got so hard to catch that the price went up on them, but that happened several weeks ago. Now there's a few more crab in the pots, not a lot but enough to pay the diesel bill, and a true fisherman needs only that. Well, that and an income enough to pay the bills in California, so maybe its a lot of crab. They aren't in the bay yet, but a few guys did okay inside the bay today. Not a lot, but dinner of Dungeness, and that's pretty good. 

     Rockfish, all depths, opens on April 1st. I lead with this, as I heard you should start with the good news first. Crabbing has been bad and would only be worse if you had to make a living off catching crab. Even the sneaky spot for crab, "danger close" to the surf off of Dillon Beach has been drained of any reason to be that close to breakers. Good place to lose gear to sanding in, still, as hydrodynamics and sand movement don't change. The last report I had from there was ten pots soaking for five days with eight Dungeness. Better than nothing but that's less than 1 crab per 6 pot/days. No bueno. There's supposedly a wave of hot water working its way here from Southern California, as their water is 5+ degrees warmer than usual for the time of year, and our had been too, but spring upwelling winds had dropped our temps to close to normal, or what scientists call "cold." They could warm pretty quickly if the wind quits, but for now the water is closer to normal than Niño. The wind-driven upwelling and cold water does bring up the mineral-rich water from the very bottom of the sea and allow a bloom of life. It's good to remember that, when it also means that the water is cold and potentially fatal if you spend to many unprotected minutes in it. Last weekend a couple of kayakers near Marshall rolled over in the wind and one of them died. The water is cold. Please dress appropriately. I don't know the specifics of the sad event but it seems that wetsuits (or dry suits) and properly fitted life jackets would have helped. They almost never hurt. We had a kayaker roll over here a little before four in the afternoon the same day but somebody saw him do it and came in to the office. Luckily, John Daleuski has just returned from town with his now fully-fueled Whaler, and Gage dispatched him to the scene. Our kayaker lived, grudgingly, as he didn't think he needed rescue (Counterpoint: clinging to your boat while it drifts is not self-rescue. It's not dying as quick. If you're not making for shore you're dying, eventually. FYI). Good work, Johnny-on-the-Spot. Our Mr. Daleuski has another nickname here but he's working hard on the Johnny-on-the-Spot one taking over the other one. A few more rescues might do it. Fingers crossed, Johnny.

     Crabbing? Not awesome, Fishing? Mostly similar, although there are a few surfperch and jacksmelt being caught. Halibut? Not for our Gage at McClure's or Inverness, but there's a separate report from Hunter Smith.: "Went Tuesday for two limits in twenty five and thirty five feet at mcClures . 28” to 31” all fine fish. Great conditions and the Solunar tables were dead on.   Hunter" So there's fish, but not all the time. Those same solunar tables let Gage down the next day. There's fish, but they aren't easy. Luckily rockfish opens in April. 

     Crabbing is still slow but not dead. The Dungeness have been clutching, as they tend to around this time of year, but that should be ending and they can go back to eating. Luckily, not all the crab are interested in making little crabs, so there's still been some Dungeness getting caught. Crab snares are catching some but not as many as the boats, as usual. The whales are on their way back and traps will probably close here next month, as they're already closing traps below Pigeon Point on March 27th at 6:00 PM. If you haven't used your traps yet this year I'd plan on doing it before tax day. 

    There will be salmon season this year. It will open on April 11 and close on May 15 below Pigeon Point. The season post-May 15 is to be determined. In the San Francisco sub-area, Point Arena to Pigeon Point, it appears that our season will start in either May or June with a few weeks on and a few weeks off until the quota of 31,200 to 34,000 salmon are close to being caught, in which case the season will end. We may even get a second chance at them in September for a second quota of 20,000 fish. Of course, all this can change. 

      A few windy days here, making it seem like spring is here, but today was nice, as is the forecast for the weekend. The break from the screaming northwest wind is appreciated. Wednesday and Thursday the wind was screaming. Luckily, not enough to cool the water down much, so there may still be bluefin offshore and (Gage hopes) halibut onshore still biting. Hopefully, we shall see.

     Last weekend we had quite a few clammers but only a few crabbers and no fishermen. The clammers did okay, as the clams have been doing well post-water pump ban. Crabbers mostly had a hard time, but there were a couple of good stories. One story from last Friday (the 27th) was of a gentleman wading off of the oceanfront beach in knee deep water that picked up two keeper Dungeness by hand. The other good story was three guys in a boat that caught only two crab all day on Saturday. Sunday they tried a different spot and caught their limits off of Dillon Beach proper. Monday they tried again and caught half limits before the crabs just stopped. These guys learned a few tips from Eddie Kim and burned through the squid and chicken to catch to their crab. Maybe the crab stopped because they caught them all. Or maybe the crab bite or don't, like fish. I'm leaning towards the bite or don't thing, but to be fair, there aren't a lot of crab out there. 

 

   It's still February and there's still a few February halibut biting. I went with Gage today and we caught two and lost a third one. This was outside the bay as inside the bay the water is as muddy as the creeks running into it. Outside was 55 degrees and green. Not much bait and only a few birds feeding here and there. The only other boats we saw were commercial boats stacking gear to either move to greener pastures or just give up and haul the pots home for the season. 

    The Coastodian sent over this photo on Monday with the report:" Hi Willy 

Just spoke to a couple that worked all day for 2 Dungeness crab limits and a bunch of red crab too.

Best hoop was three keepers. Lots of shorts and zeros along the way." So there's hope in the bay.