Yesterday was pretty slow for salmon and halibut alike. The best salmon bite was North (20 line +) and out in 300ish feet. That big school of salmon that the commercial fleet was working just kept on trucking North with little bits dropping off here and there. A few bits found their way into the shallows, though, and a couple of fish were caught off of Bird in 60 feet of water yesterday. The fish were in the rocks (they ate at least one downrigger ball yesterday) but they were close, so I took an after work run on them. I caught a short king, four undersized lingcod, and a sea urchin (first one on hook and line). I also got as close to falling out of the boat and watching troll away as you can get. I hooked a toe under the center console to keep from going all the way in, but I was over the gunnel from puckered butthole on up. I'm not really sure how I stayed in the boat, but bruises and strained muscles point to some lucky leverage. Yes, you're supposed to wear a kill lanyard, but only if you're running, not fishing. I was trolling and didn't want to yank the cord while moving around the boat. I now feel that maybe shutting off the engine accidentally is a small price to pay for continued breathing. For those of you that knew him, I saw Bob King there for a second and he looked well. 

   Here's a report from Branden Mendoza from Sunday : "Hey willy. Had a little luck over the weekend 2 keepers for 2 days. Got one yesterday off the head in about 280ft of water on a crippled anchovy. Got another one today same area on a watermelon apex. 100ft on the wire for both. Also just thought I'd mention to make sure you are checking your fish lots of cohos out there released 10 for both days. Today at the dock fish and game was confiscating cohos. Just don't wanna see anyone get slapped with a $600 fine it's not worth it. Hopefully people will be more careful. " People won't, Branden, but it's nice of you to think of them. Nice job on the fish. They weren't quite leaping into the boat for most folks over the weekend (well, maybe the silvers were).

   It looks like that school kept going North. Peter Prunuske: "My partner at Spud Point abandoned his captain and went fishing off Albion. While he and his daughters caught 4 25#ers, he left his erstwhile partner to suffer the ignominy of skunking off Bodega Sunday.  How dare he?  You can bet he gets the “bad” side of the boat next time we go out. " Well, Peter, we should all consider skunk trips "learning opportunities." Sometimes it's learning about what does and doesn't work. Sometimes it's learning that your buddy, isn't. All information is valuable. At least your "buddy" put those girls on some nice fish. Maybe next time he can do the same for you.

    Tim Woerner and his nephew Matthew caught these fish today. The big one weighed 36 pounds. The little one we won't discuss, but it was there, and today any keeper salmon was a damn good one. Salmon catch numbers dropped from "some" to "almost none". On the increase was jellyfish. Tomorrow could be different, and it kind of needs to be, as today was, for most, disappointing at best. The good news, if you want to call it that, is that fish are fickle and tomorrow could be a fantastic day. Or, not. Hey, let's roll them dice. That's fishing, and the random aspect is what we love and hate about it.

    On the halibut front, more of the same. Slow, slow, slow. But, also more of the same, the guys that caught nine yesterday caught one today. The guys that hadn't caught anything for three days prior caught two today. Fricking fishing, right? God, I love it. Fishing is odds modified by your skill and knowledge. Those odds and the value of the modifiers can change day to day and hour to hour. Doing everything "right" can net you no fish while a guy doing it "wrong" can catch. Probably it will go the other way, because statistics, but not always. Random numbers will keep even the crappy fishermen among us happy, sometimes. And we'll never really know who's who (I have a feeling that I'm a thinking crappy fisherman, but hey, odds are I'm not?).  By the way, sorry guys in the (let's face it) ugly aluminum boat with the two halibut today, I wish I got your photo. You guys ground them out in proper "determined" fashion. They will bite for you, eventually, and you guys waited them out. Good on ya'.  

 

    I spoke with several people that fished for halibut today and everyone had sad stories of no fish. A couple of bites was as good as it got. Until Gage sent me this photo and text: "Nine halibut between marker 7 and Marshall everywhere in between live smelt" Well, I guess nobody else could get them because these guys were busy catching them all. So, while it is possible to catch your limits of halibut in Tomales Bay, it's also really unlikely. 

    Kind of a similar-ish story for the salmon, mainly in the different stories from different people fishing in nearly the same places. Some guys killed 'em, some got skunked and most guys caught a couple. The word must be that the bite is easy as there has been up to an anecdotally two-hour wait to launch at Westside park in Bodega Bay. "Hot spots" ranged from just above Point Reyes to the Russian River. I heard so many spots they all run together.  A common theme was bait and birds being helpful (who would have thought?). Spoons, bait and hootchies all caught fish.

   Here's one of those hootchie-caught fish. In another week it would have topped 30 pounds but these guys just couldn't wait. 29 pounds will do. I probably wouldn't have thrown it back, either.

 

     Now, yesterday I didn't specifically say that the salmon fishing was wide open. I implied it strongly and quoted evidence to support the implication, but didn't specifically say it. Good thing, because today was a different day. Mostly, people caught a fish or better, but the guys that finished quick yesterday took significantly more time today. Most people said the kings were deeper and a couple said shallower. The silvers were high and low and CDFW was out checking boats and counting silvers. I didn't talk to anyone that had been ticketed, but the chances are good that soon the General Fund will get a boost. The hot spots were anywhere from just below Bodega Head to the Russian River area. I'm sure that the area inside the MPA was on fire for the couple of boats that foolishly gave it a try. My suggestion is not to try it. So the halibut stepped up to fill the gap, right? Not so much. One boat had three and everyone else I heard from had zero. So, it wasn't good unless you were on the right boat. 

     Sometimes, having an excessively positive self image can be bad. Tfish38 sent this picture: "

I guess there is some truth to...your bait can't be 'too big'..

The Halibut was hooked in the mouth..the hook fell out prior to the photo.." First off, Tfish38, how could anything I write not be 100% factual? (Don't actually answer that) Second, it's possible that your live bait was trying to eat the halibut and ended up snagging him instead. Finally, I think that if your rigging technique is so good as to make your bait look good and attainable for a halibut half the size of the bait, don't change anything. You figured it out.

   

   Gage says he doesn't need a wide open bite to catch limits, but it sure helps. To my knowledge, every boat that went out for salmon (and went out off of the Head) caught limits of salmon. Our six fish came from around 15 and 4 in 235 feet of water. We were all by ourselves and the largest fish weighed 14 pounds. We returned one silver and one shorty. Done before 9:00 AM. The largest one weighed in here was 25 pounds and it was caught out a bit deeper and further North in the fleet. And there is a fleet assembled. My recommendation for Saturday is to put out a lot of fenders as the boat per square foot index will be high. Another high index is the silver ratio. Commercial fishermen have said they have been catching silvers at a 1:1 or even up to 3:1 ratio to kings. Give every salmon the stink eye and look for those white gums. 

    I guess Cameron couldn't take all of the boats coming in with salmon limits, so he went out with Gage after he got off work at 4:00 and had these two fish by 5:20. It just proves that you don't need a haircut to catch fish.

    The halibut fishing was pretty slow, as the cold water from outside the bay had moved in on the high tide. After dropping off our salmon  we tried for halibut and ended up with one keeper. High boat that we heard of was Dan Dentone and his daughter with two halibut near Hog Island. Dan would like it known that today he outfished Gage at halibut. Nice work, Dan. 

 

      Here's a shot of part of the crew with the big fish today: "25, 23, and 8 others off the head with everybody else in the 230'ish area."