Bay report
by Dave Hurley
After a week plus of big tides and muddy water, the bay action is starting to heat back up. On Thursday 7-15 Jim Smith the "Wise Old Man of the Bay" reported 38 bass to 22 pounds for 22 anglers, adding 2 halibut on his Happy Hooker. Jim said he concentrated on the rock piles of the Central bay picking up two here, five there type action. They had several big fish that were landed and many more lost. Jim says "we going to kill em" the next few days with ideal tides. Jim has room so get on board on Saturday and Sunday while the action is turning up. Early next week we should see the halibut scores both in the bay and outside improve.

On Wednesday 7-14, Jim had a first-time customer from Chicago, Illinois land the biggest striper on his boat in over a decade. Fishing at Seal Rocks they were picking away on the bass when an angler hooked up with a fish that Jim thought "had to be a big white sea bass" after an hour long fight the fish was alongside and “Holy crap, it had stripes down the side”. The big hen was netted, and Jim attempted to convince the fisherman to let the fish go. They tried to revive the fish using the bait tank, and after some pictures tried for a long time to get the fish to swim freely, but the hour long fight was too much. Back in the 60s and 70s fish in the forty-class were a weekly event, and Jim knows how special a fish like that is today. They ended the day with 17 bass and two halibut, and one angler with a true wall hanger. This fish was weighed on a certified scale at 47-pounds/6-ounces on Wednesday evening, and it could have weighed over 50-pounds at the time she hit the deck. The fish pictured above doesn't look quite as big as advertised but if you know Jim you can see what a trophy it is.
Keith Fraser of Loch Lomond Bait and Tackle in San Rafael was celebrating the last of the minus tides this afternoon, and he said, “I am thinking about fishing myself tomorrow at either the Brothers or the Whaling Station”. Fraser said there are less and less fishermen who are knowledgeable about drifting the snaggy bottom at the Brothers, adding. “The bite hasn’t been all that great over the last few years”. He said, “We used to catch 20 big bass per day drifting there in the past”. He really liked these tides through next week, and he said the water cleared up today in response to less water movement. He has plenty of Loch Lomond shiners, Loch Lomond ghost shrimp, bullheads and mudsuckers for the weekend. He added that shore fishermen have been finding limits of stripers from the China Camp shoreline on mudsuckers or bullheads, Loch Lomond brand – of course.

The tides in the bay slowed down the halibut bite over the weekend, and the last of the large minus tides for the next couple of months will end this Wednesday. On Sunday 7-11 the New Huck Finn  stayed late and found some fish outside the Gate with some very good success today with 19 halibut to 18-pounds for 8 anglers. Captain Jay went along the coastal beaches and back in the bay for these fish. The best bay action has been around Mel's reef and Angel Island as the flood tide tops out and the Central Bay waters clear.

Keith Fraser of Loch Lomond Bait and Tackle in San Rafael has a celebration scheduled for Thursday since the last of the big minus tides will be over until November. He said the 1.5 and 1.4 foot minus tides over the weekend slowed down halibut fishing, and scores were consequently low in the local area. He is looking forward to this coming weekend starting on mid-week with much better tides for halibut. He did add that several boats went outside the Gate to search for cleaner water, and one boat trolling Loch Lomond shiners from Seal Rocks to the Cliff House on Saturday for a limit of halibut at 9, 12, and 16-pounds. Sturgeon fishing in the Triangle should have been good on the large outgoing tide, but the wind made conditions “uncomfortable”. Brad Hood of Petaluma continues to lead the Lord of the Sea Summer Halibut/Striped Bass Derby with his 26.6-pounder.

 Oyster Point Bait, Tackle and Deli in South San Francisco reported a few halibut came in by private boaters, and one boat said they got their fish at Candlestick Point. Another boat that came in just after this report said there were no boats working the ledge at Candlestick, so perhaps the first boat needed to keep their location a secret. My guess is they went outside the Gate.