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.