Drake's Bay Oyster Company has lost its lease and its battle to stay open. They have 90 days to remove their operation. If I were a rancher in the Park I'd be pretty nervous. As someone that fishes off of the National Seashore I'm still pretty nervous. The people that pushed that agenda don't much like fishermen and hunters and now they have more free time.
    Update: Here's a link to a new petition to sign to maybe help, or maybe just to register your dissatisfaction. It's petitioning the White House, for what it's worth.  

Looks like a heavy weather weekend. There has been a little crab action on the pier and that is probably as good as it gets for the next few days. The bay and ocean both look bad with up to 45 knot winds and seas up to 18 feet for the forecast.

The crabbing in the bay is still OK but it's getting harder to catch them. Numbers in the bay ran from 0 to 16, in the outer bay, 3 to 30, and the one guy I spoke with that tried off of Abbot's Lagoon, 0 on an overnight. Due to the number of empty pots, both in and out of the bay, many people are suspecting crab pot pirates. Usually it's not the case, but sometimes you catch a boat with a guy with your gear in his hands and you start to strongly suspect that something is up. People that are thinking about poaching other people's pots should be aware that almost everyone packs a camera now. Is this guy a pirate? I don't know, but if you read this and recognize yourself, please feel free to explain what was really happening anonymously in the comments. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation.

  

Big swell today causing a big break on the bar. More forecast for the rest of the week except for Friday, which looks like the go day for fishing the ocean from Tomales Bay. Otherwise, the crabs are still coming in from the inner bay, just not as quickly as you'd get them outside. Way safer, though. The pier is still slow.

No fishies the last couple of days but the crabbing has been decent. The outer bay is still providing a lot of crab if you are lucky enough to be the only one running your gear. The bar has been breaking off and on (very on today) so getting there is currently out of the question. Inside the bay the crabbing is OK if you find the right spot. The pier has been pretty slow but a few skilled (and lucky) folks have done alright.