Today the deeper waters had salmon for the especially skilled or lucky. For the rest, not so much. One boat landed a 13 pounder and lost another fish in 130 feet of water off of Bird Rock. It was a good day for the abalone divers but not so good for the crabbers, some of which caught dinner and some of which had bare pots.

There were some salmon to be had yesterday out in 300+ feet of water. Unfortunately, now that they've been found the wind is blowing and is supposed to continue to blow until Saturday, when the search begins again. The crabbing remains acceptable in the bay and slower in the outer bay. No swell for a few days, so the diving should be good this weekend.

Pretty slow crabbing in the outer bay with numbers ranging from 8 Dungeness on a four hour soak to none in three days. Inside the bay is actually better, on average, than outside. Even the pier has some fair action around slack tide. Salmon action is fleeting, even though the krill have pushed all the way in to the beach. There were man-sized balls of krill on the bar yesterday but the only things eating them were gulls, needlefish and my sons (who are having me toast some up tonight for their dinner). The water is flat but clear, good for diving and fishing but bad for catching.

Ron Johnson caught a limit of salmon today in the vicinity of 38 16 and 123 15. So did Dennis Carter. Many other fish were taken in the same general area if the VHF is to be believed. There were a few taken off of Elephant Rock in 170 feet of water too. The Dungeness action in the outer bay was good enough for dinner for the guys that soaked their pots while they were salmon fishing. The south wind has kicked up on the beach and is supposed to blow out tomorrow's chances to fish but after that it's back to good fishing weather (I hope).

The newly flattened water had a few salmon biting today. The fish came from out deep, 240 to 270 feet of water. Too bad they aren't as close as they were 10 days ago, but as nice as the weather was today I'm not sure that the extra distance was a bad thing. The water is cold and clear after the blow which isn't great for the fishing but made the diving nice today. It isn't too often that you can spot abalone from the surface in 16 feet of water at Tomales Point. The crabs are still holding out for now, not great numbers but OK.