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.