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.

  The crabbing has been mostly from shore this week as the weather was pretty gnarly. Yesterday a few boats hit the crab in the bay and got a few keepers, but the current was pretty bad in the afternoon and most of the crab are small. Still, action! Shore snarers have been getting a few but not much bragging. Neil Anderson sent over a snaring report: "Hi,

Ive been reading your fishing report for many years and wanted to thank you for keeping us all updated on how things are going at my favorite crabbing spot.

On Tuesday (2/17), I came out to Lawson's Landing and threw out a crab snare with a camera attached to it because I've always wanted to see what's going on under water when crab are going at my snare.  

I wanted to share the video with you in the hopes that you find it as entertaining as I did (nothing too exciting).  The video file is large so it wouldn't me attach it to the email.  Here's a google photos link: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3qjhSMdVqQA6xT6LA

Also, attached is the camera I rigged up.

Thanks

Neil Anderson

" Looks like there were a few Dungeness cruising around down there, Neil. Maybe not keepers, yet, but soon. I'm surprised by how many jacksmelt showed up at the bottom, as I've caught pretty much all of mine near the surface. I guess the messy eating habits of your crab must have chummed them in. I guess that I can lower my chum disperser and sabiki . Nice video and I hope you got a keeper on a wet day.

    

     Wingle noted in the last post's comments that he had a caught a halibut last week as well. Here's the photo as was shared to me by Gage. It sounds like 50 to 80 feet of water have a few flatfish if you're lucky and can get there from here.   Mostly lucky.

     In other news, looking ahead towards this summer, it appears that there a salmon season is likely. GSSA posted some numbers from the PFMC ahead of their scheduled meeting on the 25th, and the numbers look good. Not great, but the best returns of jacks and adults in a decade. A decade of crap, but crap fishing makes us better killers because you gotta try harder or quit. The jack count, 65,000 is second to only 2011's 85,000 jacks. I don't know if you recall 2012's salmon fishing, but it was good. As one year's jacks are the heaviest weighted variable in the algebra (calculus?) of salmon season prognosticating for the following year, a big number is good. Let's just say these numbers will make it harder to say no. Not impossible, but a no will require a really good liar. I don't think a good enough liar lurks within our border, so I'm pouring lead and tying up leaders. We're going. Game on. 

 

   So I once noted that anybody fishing for halibut in February is an idiot.  I saw a  guy catch one in February and he was drifting over the bars in the middle of the bay. And then Gage caught fish in the ocean today. I'm not saying that only special people catch fish at special times, only that special people catch fish when they're not supposed to. Gage limited, to 15 pounds. 
I was right , which is the main thing. 

          I can state with some excitement that lots of crab are being caught inside Tomales Bay. Most of the boaters I spoke with over the last week have been pulling pots and hoops full of crab. Good times! Except almost all of the crab are shorts. One of our locals, while running his hoops near Marker 5, dumped 150+  short crab back into the bay and had three crab that were exactly 5 3/4" for his effort. Those crabs went back as well. Lots of "clickers." Way more "next season, maybes." Way, way more. I haven't heard any reports from the outer bay, as you pretty much couldn't there from here for the last couple of weeks. Big swell has eliminated any "safe" passage over the Tomales Bar lately. There has been a steady flow of commercial boats working pots out there, and that's an indicator. Not a good one. For a commercial guy out of Bodega, the outer bay is a balance between fuel costs and poor crabbing. Catching a few in your front yard can be better than catching a few more farther away for more diesel. It means crabbing sucks. This is that time of year, as the crab tend to clutch around now and lose their interest in food. You know there's a short list of things that get between a man and his food, and this is the big one. The urge should pass in a few months, hopefully well before the whales make their triumphant return. February and March are always the slowest crabbing. So the good news is, it will get better. 

     The pelicans have been feeding in front of the Boathouse the last few days. I don't know if that means the herring are coming in or going out, but some fish are getting eaten as they pass over the bar in the middle of the bay. There's been a few surfperch caught lately, not a lot, but some. The ocean is still 56º, so there may be a few halibut out there biting although nobody's talking if they're catching them. There's still squid spawning down on Ten Mile, and if we don't get a week of west wind before March 1 there may be a white seabass window around the moon. Probably it will just be squid catching opportunity, but that's not that bad. Have you purchased squid lately? Catching your own is money in the bank (or freezer). Boat rockfishing opens on April 1, just in time for the wind to roar, but if we get a window my frying pan demands its tribute. 

     I was looking for an upbeat report to start this off, but no go. Crabbing? Just okay. Fishing? Let's talk about the crabbing. Maybe I'm just upset by recent news. I heard last week that Roberto, a halibut killer that I did not know personally but a guy that was acknowledged here as a halibut magician, passed away. Good for the halibut, I guess, but I was hoping that a salmon season would do the trick to help.  Roberto was an indicator like birds diving or baitfish boiling that you were in the right spot. Birds know things and recognize things that we don't because we aren't wired like them, and their knowing is necessary for their continued living. Roberto had that kind of knowing. He couldn't express how he knew, but what he knew was dead on. A little story:

  Years ago, Frank Green, one of my halibut mentors, started talking about some fisherman he'd been seeing catching lots of halibut while Mr. Green had been catching, well, less. Frankie called him "the Mexican." Whatever his name, he was catching a lot of halibut and tagging them, mostly, as he kept his limit and then started tagging the multiple other halibut he caught and released. If you caught a decent sized halibut with a tag on it, probably Roberto tagged it. The story is that Frank was trying to figure out what Roberto was doing, and he couldn't just by watching, so one day Frank dropped in for another drift on the bar just downdrift from Roberto and then let his line out far, so that he eventually snagged one of Roberto's lines. He then reeled in the "tangled" line to clear it and get a look at Roberto's setup. As I recall the story, Roberto had a single, small treble hook with a live anchovy pinned to it. I have tried this myself, since then, when I can catch anchovies, and yes, it works really well. I like the Owner ST-36 treble in size 8 through the nose of the anchovy. Will it make you as good a halibut fisherman as Roberto? Hell, no. But it can help. And maybe keep a little bit of Roberto around a while longer.