The Larssons landed this 17 pound lingcod which they caught by mooching at the Trees. There were a few salmon mooched up there as well in 60 to 80 feet of water. 

Scott and Jim Alexander and Nick Bauer are holding up 75 pounds of salmon they caught trolling and mooching mostly off of McClure's Beach. The fish are still coming from Bird down to Abbott's Lagoon, as are lots of jellyfish. The jellies seem to denser in some places more than others, and finding a less dense area seems to be key to putting fish in the box. Some places they're so thick you can barely mooch. The bar produced no halibut for the morning shift of fishermen but Frank Green got a nice view of a cruising mighty whitey. The dorsal was over a foot high and visible for half of a minute. It's time for the divers to really earn their halibut. One boat has caught four halibut in two days by jigging white bucktails back by Hog Island. 

It's derby time again. The date has been moved forward a bit this year so that there will be more salmon and better weather. I'm not sure that Merle wants us to have good weather, so no promises. No promises on the "more salmon", either. At any rate, August 23, 2014 is the derby, same rules as last year. Gage says he's going to win again and good luck in your fight for second place.

The first boat to return today only took two hours round trip to limit. He was trolling off of the Trees. After that things went downhill with catch numbers dropping to mostly zeroes. Moochers did a little better than trollers today. The largest fish weighed in today was a 58 pound thresher shark caught by Haley Porter. Halibut fishing has been and remains slow. A few are coming in from the bar, Hog Island and McClure's Beach but they're far from a sure thing. Rockfishing has been OK

These salmon weighing 20 and 27 pounds were caught on the troll on straight bait by Elephant Rock on Saturday. Trollers seemed to do better than moochers over the weekend but there was no guaranteed method of catching, as many people would attest. The squid schools have reformed and started collecting salmon again, but the squid boats are back as well. Yesterday one troller had his downrigger cable bit and dragged by a very large, very scary shark near Bird Rock. Another guy saw what he thought was a Great White jump half out of the water in the same area. Possibly the scariest story from yesterday was the boat drifting inside of Bird Rock for rockfish when they saw something white underwater. The white thing came closer, then jumped out of water and crashed into the boat and motor, scratching the engine and leaving black slime on the edge of the transom. It was a big sunfish, or mola. I find this troubling because I thought we and the sunfish were cool. They eat jellyfish; we hate jellyfish; the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Now I don't know what to think.

The Alexander boys are posing with Dad's 30 pounder. This fish was troll-caught.

Mike Gonzales of Lodi caught this 28 pound salmon today off of the Trees. He and his brother caught limits of salmon while trolling between McClure's Beach and Bird Rock. 

This 33 pound salmon was mooched on the Teacher's Pet. Mike Stahl "let" his mother-in-law catch all the fish today. 

Jan McHale caught this 25 pound salmon, her first,  yesterday.  It was one of seven that we boated off of Bird Rock. The fish all came trolled on green label herring. Most fishermen ran a little farther south to McClure's Beach, Elephant Rock or the Keyholes for some great salmon action. The fish were feeding on giant schools of squid, which made it easy to find the hungry critters. Don't worry though, they won't fill up. A bunch of commercial squid boats arrived and caught or dispersed all those schooled squid. In their eagerness, one seiner actually wrapped up a commercial salmon troller in his net. One of the squid boats may even have removed some of those pesky, full bellied salmon that weren't biting anyway. Thoughtful of them, really. The fish that are left are hungrier without all that snack food around.  Good luck finding them, though. The schools should reform soon, albeit smaller. Of course, if you got your opportunity to fish this weekend and can't catch, at least you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that someone else profited from your misfortune. 

Jesse Keilman from South Lake Tahoe again, this time with a 25 pound halibut from my secret hole. This is why you're not supposed to tell people about your fishing holes. I haven't even caught a halibut yet this year and this guy is smiling here next to my fish. Nice work, Jesse, but watch your back.