Good news! We drew a long straw and Shelter Cove got the short one! Sorry, Shelter Cove guys, but our Dungeness season will open as scheduled at 12:01 AM on Saturday November 7th, hoops and snares only, no traps.

"Recreational Dungeness Crab Fishing Begins in Most Areas Nov. 7 with Trap Restrictions, Commercial Season Delayed

The recreational Dungeness crab season will open under trap restrictions beginning Nov. 7, 2026, except in a portion of Northern California where it has been delayed due to a public health hazard.  

State health agencies determined that Dungeness crab collected north of Fort Bragg (southern Humboldt County/northern Mendocino County) have unhealthy levels of domoic acid and recommended delaying the opening of the recreational fishery in state waters from Cape Mendocino (40° 10' N latitude) to the Ten Mile State Marine Reserve (39° 33.3' N latitude). Following this recommendation, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Director Meghan Hertel has delayed the opening of the recreational Dungeness crab season in this area. Recreational take and/or possession of Dungeness crab is prohibited in these closed waters.

The use of recreational crab traps will be restricted from the California/Oregon border to Point Conception (34° 27' N latitude, Fishing Zones 1-5) until at least Jan. 1, 2027, due to the number of confirmed entanglements this year and high abundance of humpback whales across the fishing grounds. A Fleet Advisory has also been issued for all Fishing Zones for the recreational fishery and crabbers should avoid setting any gear in areas where whales are present. The trap restriction does not affect the use of hoop nets and crab snares (loop traps), and CDFW reminds anglers that all hoop nets must be serviced every two hours and cannot be left unattended for longer periods.

The commercial Dungeness crab fishery will be delayed from the California/Oregon border to Point Conception until at least Jan. 1, 2027. The commercial season delay and recreational trap restriction is required due to the number of humpback whale entanglements during the 2026 calendar year. Current regulations require the CDFW director to take these actions to reduce the possibility of additional entanglements for the remainder of the year. This delay will also allow whales to migrate out of California waters prior to the opening of the commercial fishery."

So the Commies are screwed as usual. We get to crab with hoops not traps, as usual. SNAFU, as usual. There are a lot of humpback whales out there. Usually you don't see them inshore but this year they are here. Warm water isn't likely to send them away anytime soon, nor does the warm water seem likely to go away for a while. Speaking of warm water....

Eric Sheppers caught this 33 pound, 45" white seabass today while rockfishing off of Abbott's Lagoon on a white fly with a piece of squid on it. It almost spooled him a couple times. Nicely done sir!

      Pretty slow last weekend. The weather was meh, but Mike Mack and crew landed a few fish.  The weather was also meh. And yet, bonito made the smoker for Mike, and he found smoked  bonito was really good. More was tried for over the weekend but reality intervened.

  Over the weekend a friend of the report has passed.  The Simpsons, "The Wet Dream" guys, have been pretty regular contributers here. Recently the worst happened for them. Derrick was killed in a car accident. This is a fishing report, but he was a reliable reporter.It hurts because I  know them. Here's a link for helping: https://gofund.me/689d753d3 The Simpsons landed a white seabass back in early September in the bay. 

 

    Gage went out with Tom Brodsky today for bluefin. The got this one about 9:00 am and then no other bites. It bit a sardine MadMac 200 35 seconds back at 7 knots. They were between Cordell and the Bodega Canyon. Many boats out trying for bluefin today. Some guys caught (Ryan Giammona of North Bay Fishing Charters was spanking them in the afternoon) and many were sad. Speaking of the sad guys...

    ...Alec Bennett got some nice action shots of our day bluefin fishing. Both fuel filters plugged on the way out. I plumbed past them with some inline filters on the boat Then we trolled and tangled and cursed for 6.5 hours. Then on the way in the inlines plugged up and I barely could get the hoses connected without the filters, but it worked (it shouldn't have). Now to replace all filters. Again. The wrenching wasn't even the worst part of the day. I discovered that trolling MadMacs and spreader bars at the same time is not like chocolate and peanut butter at the same time. It is a tangle machine that eats gear and time, and lots of both. Side note, the crimps on the spreaders will cut and weaken your Spectra to where it just breaks while trolling a MadMac. Awesome. We fished from 38 03 by 123 31 to 38 11 by 123 38 and saw some fish hooked around us at both ends of that range. We saw tiny jumpers at the first numbers. I would write more but I need to go pet my Golden retriever again for some positive affirmation. 

PS. To the gentleman that stopped to help us this morning, thank you. Stopping on your way out is pretty badass. I hope you had some good karma today and mine didn't rub off on you.

     Gale force winds on Saturday kept the fish count low. There were a couple of halibut caught in the bay by a small portion of the few boats that braved the chop. Yesterday the weather was better, not good out on the ocean , but Mike Mack went out and found the bonito off of Elephant Rock in 200 feet of water and caught his fill. He also got beat up by the rough conditions. 

    Also of note: There are a lot of Dungeness inside the bay. Shore snarers are reeling in about ten Dungeness for every red keeper they're catching. Most of the Dungies are not quite the size we need them to be but many of them are. No telling how long they'll last once the season opens (as we are recycling the crabs now) but the opener looks promising. The ocean conditions being kind of atypical this year, there's a possibility of a domoic acid delay, or at least the pessimists think so. Nobody is dropping dead from eating the red crab, though, and nobody is testing the reds either, so I guess nobody is worried? 

 

    Yes, Virginia, there are bluefin at Cordell. And off the Farallones and Half Moon Bay. But I can only speak for the fish at the northern-most point. Gage found one yesterday at 06 31 at 11:00 am. We went there today. It was rougher that forecast but the definition of fishable. We had to slow down to MadMac speed (10 knots or so) 10 miles short of Gage's numbers from yesterday as the weather was no bueno and we were beating up the boat (and us). We threw the macs in and trolled the 10 miles. As we were going to swap out the Madmacs for spreader bars at the numbers we hooked up. A good rule for fishing is of you're catching don't change your method. We caught our limits (4) of bluefin at 06 by 31 in 90 minutes on Madmacs at 10 knots. Other guys had bigger fish farther south but I don't leave fish to find fish. They also had limits. There were probably a few with nothing as fishing can be a fickle b*tch. There were lots of bluefin caught from below the Half Moon Bay weather buoy to at least our numbers. There may be a weather window next week. 

      Last weekend the fishing was pretty much bad, unless you were Stephen James of Ukiah. He caught a second halibut on Sunday, again across from the Landing, but a bit smaller.  Also on a Redrum jig. Mike Mack and company had one salmon on Saturday and a few bonito but just lingcod on Sunday. 

Today Gage and his buddy Mason had one bluefin to 20 pounds at Cordell.  Tomorrow?  There's been quite a few bluefin caught near Cordell banks over the last few days. Probably more tomorrow,  and hopefully some by Gage and I. More to come...

 

     Stephen James of Ukiah started us off today with this nice 18 pound halibut caught right across the bay from the Landing. It bit a white 2 oz. Redrum tube. There's not no fish in the bay, just almost none, and now there's one less, but what fantastic weather to go sit in a boat.

 

   Slooow this week. The Swampy report: "Evening,

Spent Tuesday all day trying to catch bait. Ended up with 13 whole baits of various grades. Got my Dad out for a lot of drifts on Wednesday with him catching one short and a couple missed bites. Great year again and waterfowl better watch out. Thanks for another great year at your little bay.

Swampy " That means the halibut fishing in the bay is bad. If Swampy ain't catching the rest of us are kinda belly up. I can confirm that I couldn't catch in the bay. At least you had some sun on your stay, Swampy. Look for the bright spots. And ducks.

   Gage found the bonito yesterday. On his way to Point Reyes to try for salmon he found birds working at 38 08 by 123 00. He was only able to get two lines in before he hooked up on both. He limited with his ten fish and the boat running with him landed six bonito on salmon gear, losing about as many. Gage used albacore gear, both feathers and Rapalas, trolled at 5 to 7 knots, and his largest fish weighed 13# gutted. 

    I had a morning meeting so I didn't launch until after 1:30. No bites on the bar for me but I caught one halibut in 45 feet of water by Tomales Point on a Redrum jig, probably not coincidence that it was the turn of the tide. No more bites for me. I started running down to where Gage had caught his bonito but it was almost 3:00 so I stopped in 150 feet of water off the Trees and trolled two lines northwest. Off Tomales Point fifteen minutes later I saw a boil next to the boat and maybe ten seconds later my Rapala got bit. One bonito later I went home as I had no ice. If you can find feeding birds there seems to be lots of bonito. If you can't there's a few scattered about. Water temperature was 54 to 56 degrees.