Tom Brodsky didn't try for salmon yesterday and stuck with halibut, for the most part. "Hey Willy, 

6 halibut for two of us,  nothing too big,  got 3 on the jig, 3 on live bait. The two lings caught on Bigfoot jigs on the Point, while I was making bait. Half on the outer bar, half inside sand point."  Today, Swampy and crew landed three limits of halibut and missed as many bites, all on live bait. Tomorrow a few boats will be heading out to the warm water about 30 miles out to try for albacore. Might as well, as slow as the salmon has been.

     Tom Brodsky sent in a report yesterday: "Halibut are still biting right at the change of the tide. Not bad for a few rookies. Lost a few at the boat and missed some other bites. on jigs and had dead bait bitten half a couple times. We also trolled from the Bodega buoy back to the day beach, not many weeds no salmon. 4 came off the bar out front, 1 on the inside " Nice work, Tom and crew. There were several boats with no fish over the weekend, but at least two boats on Friday caught two limits of halibut each, most of them by Hog Island. Catching bait was hard, but catching halibut wasn't for our two successful boats. Tom and crew didn't try for liveys and just got jiggy with them. Their jigs were Bigfoot Baits and Redrum tube jigs. They weren't quite as effective as the live baits but they work way better than the bait you can't catch. Today the weather was so rough that even Mike Mack sat it out. Maybe if there were a few salmon caught in the last few days he would have chanced it, but big wind and no fish make Mike a beach guy, and rightly so.

 

   So, when I said that the halibut fishing is slow, I neglected to mention that it is only mostly slow. Gage and I caught two limits of halibut today, two on live jacksmelt (the only two that I could catch in four hour's of fishing), four on jigs, five of them on the turn of the tide. Tim Woerner caught a halibut, lost a halibut, missed a halibut bite, and caught a striper, all on a tube jig. Miller Time trolled on Ten Mile up to Elephant for salmon with no bites but found a mess of jacksmelt that they were able to convert into a pair of large halibut. So, salmon sucks, today. But halibut, booyah. At least today.

 

  So, there was a thresher hooked from the beach on Tuesday. I heard another was hooked and lost from a kayak on Wednesday, too. Today Gage and I saw one jump off of Dillon Beach but none caught that we heard of. 

   We had one boat go fishing from here in the last two days and all they caught was a rockcod. The salmon fishing is way slow, post-wind. So Gage jumped in with Tom Brodsky for an albacore trip in Fort Bragg today and they ended up with 22 albacore and one dorado. No giants landed by them but they heard of quite a few on the radio. Wind for the rest of the week, it looks like.

   In light of the fact that there has been no other local fish to report, I was sent this photo today: "Ken Sousa somewhere in Alaska thanks Ron White" I think I heard it was the Tsiu river. That's a lot of fish, and a lot more than are being caught here, now. But it ain't over here, not yet. We did have a gentleman hook four thresher sharks from the beach in front of the boathouse yesterday. He landed zero, but Gage and I saw the last one jump a couple of times before it broke off. It looked to be 20 to 30 pounds. We're working on video of it, as it should have been on the webcam.

 

    It turns out that, had I read my email on time, I'd have learned that Mike Mack and crew caught five salmon just south of McClure's on Saturday. That's old news, though. Sunday, the boys went back to the same place and circled a bait ball for limits before eleven. They dropped them off and tried for halibut after, but let's talk about the salmon. "Limits by 11am fished keyhole at 90 to 100' hoochies blue and green 55 pulls. Massive anchovies bait balls. Also seen over 40 bottlenose dolphins in a school rip thru the bait. Awesome day on the water!!" The hoochies have been the ticket for the last few weeks, especially the blue ones. Those bottlenose were in the outer bay last evening, feeding.

    The halibut fishing has been slow, but good enough that I was able to jig up this 14 pounder last evening on the bar. Not as good for me as it was for "Jigger" John Rosasco and David Gonzales today. They jigged up three halibut and two stripers on the bar before 8:00 AM, then went down to the top of Ten Mile and caught four salmon in two doubles. They caught lingcod as well, so they got a Slam +.