The salmon fishing has been on the slow side but a few people have been been catching. One boat this morning came back in so soon I thought that he had forgotten his bait. It turns out that he limited on salmon. There was another boat that had never salmon fished before that caught two. For those of you that didn't catch (cough Eddie Kim cough) consider these stories aspirational. It can happen to you. It just didn't happen to you today....

 

 

 This halibut, caught on the north side of Hog, weighed 15 pounds. It bit a (gasp!) live anchovy. There were a few others caught as well. It would appear that Hog Island has a few fish around it again. There may even be a few closer to the mouth of the bay. These large fish that have been getting caught probably weren't all sitting in the bay for the last few years waiting for the day they could eat someone's hook. Probably. But it seems likely that some of these fish just arrived.

Brian Tillinghast sent in this report from last Saturday :"Hey Folks, expected bait and fish would be scattered after windy week, but thanks to Willy's Thursday report and Gage's reinforcement of such on our tractor launching through the clamming armada Saturday morning, was able to mooch up one nice fish pushing up to the Trees against that south wind in my little Montauk in about 70-80ft of water and then drifting with wind and sea anchor back up to Tomales Point, trying to stay bit inside of fleet. Missed one other good bite " I'm just glad that I'm not the only missing good bites. I miss a bunch of the bad bites, too. 

 

   First off, a report from Swampy from a few days ago:"Afternoon Willy,

Slow three days of halibut chasing for us. Ended up with one each day with a 15# and 10# being caught north of hog on shiners.  Big Al (see attached) caught this monster much further Back in the bay. Nice new set of wheels you are sporting, good choice of truck.

See you in a couple weeks, Swampy" Poor Swampy made the mistake of following me further back in the bay for this "hog". You shoulda stuck with your plan, Swampy. It's bad enough that I listen to my own advice. You should know better. 

   Tim tells me this is Team Jake, not Team Tim. Tim reeled in this 30 pounder, even if Jake figured out what the fish were biting on (I can't tell all the details but there was a hootchy, bait, and dodger involved). Team Jake ended up with three salmon yesterday, putting them at the top for salmon at Lawson's Landing on Saturday (which is really all Jake wanted). The salmon bite hasn't recovered from last week's wind, yet, but if the forecast is correct then good times are coming.

    Gage sent me this:"Anthony Piccardo 16 lb striper 2 days ago on live anchovy at seal haul island area" Right after I told Anthony not to tell me his secret spot. Well, as long as Anthony didn't tell me. There have been a few stripers taken in this area this past weekend. Not all of them were this large. There's a bit of a bottleneck in the bay near Number 5 marker and the stripers seem to have figured that out. As the anchovies move in and out of the bay they have to pass through this area. 

    Your obligatory SBS photo of the day. I'll title it, "Room for One More." Cause there clearly is. I'm learning, if there's still a tiny bit of freeboard then there's still room. All aboard!

   So, since last weekend we've been watching the pelicans and cormorants chasing anchovies in the surf and just beyond. A few party boats have been dropping in to fish the mouth of Tomales Bay. There was some debate whether the boats were here because the fishing was good or because the water sucked less there (The weather has been, well, let's call it suboptimal). So this morning I headed out with my wife's uncle to see if there were any salmon there. I couldn't even find any baitfish. The brown, 59º water is now clear, 52º water. Don't worry, the seaweed and jellyfish are still there. The weather wasn't too bad this morning, though, so I headed out to the Trees in 80 feet of water. The water was a balmy 48.7º at one point, but we boated two 17 pound salmon out of three bites in 45 minutes before the jellyfish, which had been appalling, got worse and it became completely unfishable. You could see other salmon on the meter but there was no way to keep the gear clean. When we caught all of our bites were within two minutes of resetting a line. When we left there was no time that the gear wasn't slimed. When your line is coming up as you're letting it down it is time to go. So we went halibut fishing. The hole by the yellow weather buoy is full of anchovies. We filled our bait tank quickly and then ran farther back towards Marshall. We eventually caught three before the South wind sent us home. I didn't hear any other reports but I think I saw Swampy cleaning a halibut.

    So if it's windy and rough but there's fish to be caught, Mike Mack and Tim Nelson are probably out there doing it. For his birthday on Sunday, Mike Mack went out and nailed some nice ones at the Trees and earned them in the slop. Those fish look big enough to almost be worth it. But I'm kind of a fair weather fisherman. Well, okay. Not kind of. Jesse Keilman and his crew limited again on Sunday with the last two fish coming around the bell buoy ("TB"). As the wind causes some of the anchovies to flood into the bay there's a distinct chance for a salmon to be caught in Tomales Bay this week. If you are that lottery winner, check it very close because most of the salmon in Tomales Bay are the protected, expensive kind. Kings can be caught in the bay but not usually. 

   Today we had firetrucks, ambulances, helicopters (both the Sonoma Sheriff's helo and a Coast Guard MH-65), and boats out for the clammer extravaganza. Probably a boat flipped over, for sure a guy got pulled out of the water by the Coast Guard chopper, and after everybody went home they all came back because of the same report from a different person. I don't know, but I'm guessing a quarter million of your tax dollars went up in smoke today trying to rescue people that shouldn't have been on the water. The level of confusion due to various reporting parties with varying cell signals and varying levels of communication ability resulted in a Charlie Foxtrot that was so good they had to do it twice. On the plus side, the level of ignorance on the water has finally come to the attention of the higher-ups at the Coast Guard and there will be Guardsmen here for at least the next few tide mornings to try to moderate the foolishness. I approve. 

       Cameron sent me this picture of some of the guys that didn't need to be rescued :"Watched these guys have an interaction with the guy on the chopper. Guess he figured they were in trouble, but I guess not since he flew away after a minute of talking." The "guy on the chopper" was the guy dangling beneath Henry One (wrong preposition, Cameron. Not on, but under.). The crew of the helicopter mistakenly thought that eight guys in this boat constituted an obvious problem. Incredibly, they weren't the ones in life-or-death trouble, they were just inconvenienced by shallow water. There was another group that had a guy drift up on the mainland at Tom's Point and were going to call 911 because their friend couldn't get back. They were told by friendly Lawson's Landing staff that they should walk, as they had somehow mistaken inconvenience for an actual emergency. 

Welcome to August. It seems windy here. Not windy enough to keep the hardcore off the water but hard enough that I was actually glad to be working. Until people started coming in with fish.

   These guys just roll in from Tahoe and put fish in the box. Jesse Keilman and crew limited on salmon today between Tomales Point and Bird Rock in 50 feet of water. The story is that they lost a dozen others to wild fish and wilder weather. Big fish weighed 24 and 26 pounds. 

   Dan  Stanfill caught this 26 pounder at Elephant today after a delayed start due to engine issues. It seems like it worked out okay. Not for the fish, for Dan. The fish had a bad day.

  Another day, another Eddy Kim photo. He earned it today, though. "Wind 💨 was blowing today but just wanted to get 1 more bite. 2 today with 26lbs biggest!" He was going to go for halibut but we told him, "You gotta at least look out there. It might be fishable." Now I heard a lot of words to describe the weather out there today and oddly, fishable was not one of them. "Nautical" and "sporty" came up, as did "really sloppy" and "it sucked." Terminology tended toward the negative more for boats with less fish. The range of the ones I heard about was one to six with two and three being the most common numbers. I only heard of a couple of halibut inside the bay from boat fishermen but there was at least one good one lost and one caught from shore today. The lost fish bit a squid but I didn't hear about the successful halibut's bait or lure of choice. 

Also, if you find yourself on the bay in the next couple of days you might keep an eye out for another missing boat. No picture to speak of, but I gathered it was an aluminum about 12 feet long with a 5hp gas engine. Incoming tide swept it from the clam island Saturday morning. That's all I know, I'm afraid. We've got the owner's info; if you see or find it give us a call at (707)-878-2443 or comment here.