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.