The wind made it pretty unpleasant in the ocean yesterday and today, but there were still a few fish biting. A couple of guys limited on salmon yesterday (nice work Jake and Sean) near Bird Rock but many of the fishermen trying the area went home with nothing but bruises from being tossed around. My crew and I found a school of 5 1/2" to 6" anchovies on the bar and filled our bait tank. The anchovies scored us six halibut to 22 pounds, a  15 pound striper and a (maybe legal/maybe not) 28"ish white sea bass (returned to the sea). We made a quick trip out to Bird during a too-short lull in the West wind for one salmon just before noon, went in, put the salmon in the ice chest in my pickup and went back to the halibut. The flatfish came from the bar(1), across the bay from the Boathouse(2 and the striper), Hog Island (2) and Marshall (1 and wsb). We were chasing the warm water and the tide change. 

   This is Zach Liddle the fish counter, who got to count his own fish on Wednesday. Zach caught this 10 pound halibut and a sand sole on the bar. We told you that boat caught fish, Zach.

    Here's a picture from today. It looks like salmon will still bite on a rough ocean. Landing them can be tough, and so can staying in the boat, but the biting, no problem. Good thing, because now they're calling for wind for the next three days. I guess it won't bother Mike Mack and Tim Nelson, since they figured out how to stay in the boat and catch fish. This fish was caught off of Tomales Point, as were quite a few other salmon this afternoon.

    Here's a similar Wednesday report from the Harvest Time team:"Best small craft advisory everrrr" Please note that the weather is supposed to be decidedly worse for the next few days.

   Mike Martin sent in this report from over the weekend:"Thought I’d send some pics in. The first one is from Sunday. That’s the boat owner, Pete Gobi’s 9 year old son with his first big salmon. We limited(6) out by 10;30am off Carmet(22 and 7 lines). Our friends went back there Monday morning and repeated so we went out Monday afternoon(launch 3:00 pm) and picked up the 2 small ones. Headed back in at 6:30 pm and decided to drop in at the Whistle and we promptly had a double and landed both of them and about 5 minutes later had another double. Landed the salmon and let a ling cod go. Back at the dock at 7:15 with the 5 salmon in the picture." Very nice report, and it gets better with a second message sent:"On a side note his son called us on Monday evening to check on us. We only had the two small ones at that point. His son said “that’s because you don’t know what you are doing” and we should have waited for him to get out of school so he could go with us.

Mike"  So now you know who to call for the real salmon info. What I want to know is, did he tell you to stop at the Whistle?

   The Nursements sent in a late picture from last weekend, reportedly caught at the north end of Ten Mile Beach on the troll.

     We had 10 to 20 knots of wind on the water today, making it the very definition of "fishable." Dan Riffle and company caught salmon to 26 pounds but had to make a slower trip home than normal. 

   Tom Treadway and his first mate came back from the Keyholes with three beauties, the largest two weighing 20 and 24 pounds. It was another slow ride for home for these fishermen, but I have a feeling that they might be going back tomorrow. The forecast for the rest of the week is looking poor, but by the weekend the worst wind will move offshore if things go as predicted.

   Elijah Blockman caught this 22 pound halibut on the Tomales Bay Bar on Sunday. The big flatty bit a properly presented jig.

    Here's Joel S. and Brian Underwood of Santa Rosa showing off a couple of nice salmon they caught yesterday. 

    Mike Jones sent in this report from this weekend:"Went through 3 trays, but finally hit the 30 lb class along with a couple of other nice fatties. Trolling in 100' of water. This was David's first salmon!" Please note the camera angle this shot was taken from, as it not only makes the fish more impressive but also was the only angle that wouldn't show boats as far as the eye could see.

    Tim Nelson sent in this report from the weekend:"Sunday July 22 

Limited out @9:01am on salmon then headed back into the bay to try for Halibut only coming up with about 10 Short's... So much for our grand slam dreams... Only our second time salmon fishing but with all the wisdom and help from Willie, Gage and the guys from the fleet we got our limit Sunday and 3 nice fish Saturday... Thanks everyone... " Thanks for the picture and shout-out. Now, if you thought was fun, Tim, wait until the albacore come in...

    Mike McKnight sorted out a nice limit of salmon from the swarm of small fish down on the beach. 

    These smiling guys caught their limits yesterday and at one point had all four rods hooked on salmon at once. 

    Kelley Roy sent these pictures in today:"Willy

Just a great salmon weekend – even with all the boats!

With the crowd south of Elephant, I think we were all doing same thing, saw nets flying at times….was surprised that some came home emptyL"  If you look to the left of Kelley you can sort of see a small yellow blob that is several crab pot floats tangled together. There's a couple of those in this area below Elephant, so beware.

   Now, with all those nice pictures and great stories, here's the news so far today: "Where'd the fish go?" Somebody flipped the wrong switch and the bite and bait disappeared. There have been a few salmon caught today, but mostly the guys that bought a bunch of bait came back with most of it. Guess who came back? If you guessed jellyfish, you win. Not as bad as they were, but it was sure nicer without them. Looks like it's over... 

   ...and then these 22 pound salmon came in just before closing. Looks like it's not over, it's just slower.

Here's the "cheat sheet" with some of the local names of fishing spots, as requested. Clicking on it should make it larger.