The water was sloppy today but these guys stuck it out a caught their limits at 12 and 2. They said that the watermelon Apex was a hit with the salmon at 70' OTW. Nice job gentlemen.

       Yes, the rumor is true; Tom Carter caught his wife's fish. Jerrie's fish weighed 26 pounds and came from the North side of Hog. The halibut have been coming from both sides of the island and some of the bite is edging toward the mouth, but as of yet, no fish that I've heard of from the bar. The water there is still very cold. If we get four or five days without the wind I think the fish will be there.

     Only a few boats went out in the ocean in the last couple of days. Yesterday there were a couple of salmon caught, or should I say earned, by Greg Gartrell. It was not nice out there. Today's fishermen reported less fish but slightly less bad weather. It didn't get real sporty until later in the day, at least.

     James Woods sent in this report:"This dude is named Salty and on Saturday he caught 3 fish like this on 3 separate drifts at the weather buoy." Not everybody did as well as Salty, here, but there's been a few halibut coming in from back that way. The bait has become a bit harder to get as quite a bit has moved back out of the bay into the ocean. I hope the salmon find that bait in the outer bay soon. 

     Gage and Justin said the stripers were biting last night. They might be lying, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

    This was sent in by Mitch Hamilton:"Another nice trip with grandson Travis and son in Law Brandon. Caught back by hog on jack smelt"

     On the salmon front, the weather was worse today but at least one intrepid boat returned with five salmon in an attempt to redeem themselves from yesterday's six fish lost. That goes a long way towards redemption. Here's evidence:

     Jake was kind enough to include a shot of the decent water conditions earlier today (it is bad now) and fishing location. From the photo, he was fishing a little South and outside of the boat off of Tomales Point. Hey, if anyone fishing out of Bodega Bay wants to share a bragging photo or (more importantly) a successful fishing location, send an email to lawsonslanding@gmail.com. I'll say something nice about you.

     Peter Honebein sent in this picture from today. "17lb 220' off point. 80' on wire in morning. Lost another at the boat about an hour later." For those of you familiar with your GPS, that's about 14 and 3. Oddly, it had a mackerel in its belly. 

     Louis Silva of Sacramento caught this nice 15 pound salmon today in 120' of water off of McClure's Beach. It was his first and the boat's only fish. Not everybody did as well today and almost nobody did as well they'd hoped. The salmon and the halibut fishing was spotty. Bites were fairly scarce and when they did bite there was a good chance the fish would get away. One boat lost six salmon. At least one big striper was caught and intentionally released by Hog Island (my releases are almost all unintentional). 

     Here's Josh Hollis with a halibut from Thursday. "Hey, caught this guy yesterday evening just south of hog on a shiner in about 28' feet of water. Couple of other boats had some fish also." The halibut and the baitfish have both spread out and can be found closer to the mouth of the bay now. We picked up three on the edge of a hole just South of Tom's Point at the turn of the high tide yesterday morning. Ours liked live sardines and mackerel. 

    

    So, salmon. You've probably already heard that they're biting, and if you haven't, well, now you have. There were many boats out today (one gent I spoke to counted 75 that he could see) and it sounds like they're scattered from 150 to 200 feet of water and from Tomales Point to the North end of Ten Mile. The better bite was early but fish were caught all day. Depths ranged from 160' to 20' on the wire with the average being around 100'. The weather was not as nice as one would hope for, but better than the forecast for the next couple of days. At least the fish are moving onshore now and we can expect a few to start showing up even shallower and chasing fin bait so that the moochers have a shot at 'em, too. 

     This picture is for David Gonzales. He caught a 29 and then a 30 pound halibut this week, then said "I'm going for the big one" at the top of the bragging board, a 33 pounder. Well, he left this morning and this afternoon his fish showed up. Larry Mathis of Forestville used live bait out of one of our rental boats to catch this 33 pound beauty. Or did it look like this?:

     Justin Wadman brought this one in for a late weigh-in. 18 pounds, in the surf, midway up the beach, SP Minnow.