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.