Hiding among the thresher sharks yesterday was this 32 pound halibut caught by Jerry Carter and at least one salmon . The salmon mooching bite was good for the folks that found bait in 40 feet of water south of Bird. Trolling produced some fish as well but the weeds in the shallower water made it difficult to troll there. Some small schools of squid in the shallows.

Finally a picture of one of the thresher sharks. This one, caught by Mike Nursement of Weimar, weighed 47 pounds and took over a half hour to land. There were bigger ones hooked today but very few landed that I'm aware of. If you don't want to hook one then avoid the bar and off of Dillon Beach because there are enough of them there now to be a real nuisance.

One more picture from yesterday. Cameron Vogler caught this 20 pound halibut and a 20 pound salmon. He and his brother Gage fished with Steve Towne off of Ten Mile Beach yesterday. Cameron's fish all bit on purple haze hoochies.

Tom and Terry Brodsky of Newcastle showing off the new biggest fish on the big fish board, a 33 pound salmon.
Steve Martin of Rohnert Park with the number 2 ranked salmon, a 32 pounder.
Steve Towne of Dillon Beach with his 22# halibut. Steve's boat returned with 3 salmon , 16 to 20 pounds, and 6 halibut, 10 to 22 pounds, all from Ten Mile. Mr. Towne trolled the length of the beach yesterday after the Bird Rock bite fizzled. There were salmon caught around Bird yesterday but not nearly as many as last weekend. Some salmon were caught on the bar yesterday but be forewarned, there are more thresher sharks there than salmon. One boat hooked four there yesterday and another had two on and off. At least one fisherman will be returning with "wire leaders and a 50-wide." Some wind forecast for the weekend but with luck it will stay offshore and let us fish.

The halibut bite has slowed a bit, even on Ten Mile. Ten Mile is still the best place to catch, with a few coming from off Dillon Beach and a couple from Hog. Four thresher sharks hooked and lost yesterday, three by one boat off Dillon Beach. Another boat had to return six salmon while keeping four halibut on the beach. Best salmon bet for tomorrow is still the waters off Bird and to the south. The fish have been there for over a week now. Maybe a little wind this weekend but the last wind blew these salmon in. Maybe this wind will blow in some more.

Cindy Whitley with her 21# salmon. Many salmon today with the moochers doing better than the trollers on average. A wide variety of tackle was successful, but the common theme was keeping your gear close to the bottom in 50 to 90 feet of water. The fish are being caught over a much wider area now. Ten Mile was good for halibut and a few salmon today and at least one boat unintentionally released a white seabass.

One salmon each for this crew. Johnnie Paiva's weighed 24 pounds, Paris Paiva's weighed 20 pounds, and Joe Morrow's weighed 23 pounds. All fishermen were from Sacramento.
Jerrie Carter of Corte Madera caught this 23 pound halibut on the bar. There's talk that she may let her husband, Tom, catch a fish this year. The best halibut bite was on Ten Mile with at least one boat with 9 halibut aboard. The rockfish even bit well yesterday. As I write there are boats heading in with salmon limits.

Misters Harper and DaCruz with a 25 pound salmon apiece. They also had 21 and 22 pound salmon to round out their limits. Rotary salmon killers and green dodgers were the ticket for them today.

Wyatt Zanardi of Penngrove caught this 29# salmon today while trolling in the middle of the fleet off Bird Rock. He and his dad lost another big fish when a boat trolled over their line. People, please give the boats with fish on some room. Nobody needs to get hurt. Mooching is also working well for salmon. Like yesterday, not everyone is catching fish but some people are limiting out. There's some halibut coming in from Ten Mile as well.

Not all the boats have returned as of yet, but so far it sounds like the hot bite has cooled. A lot. Best description: "More boats, less fish." This said from the guy who caught his limit and was back by noon. There were a few nice halibut caught by Hog in the last few days. Rockfishing has been difficult for many, possibly dues to a strong southerly current running down the coast. If I was going fishing tomorrow I would go deep, 200'+. There was lots of krill out there last week.

Cameron, 10, and Gage, 8, Vogler, with Cameron's 21 pound salmon.
Greg Gartrell of Sacramento shows off his 26 pound salmon caught off Bird.
Bob Weeks of Woodland with his 26 pound salmon. Many salmon were caught in a pretty small area yesterday and it makes one wonder if perhaps there aren't a few in other areas. Initial radio reports this morning makes it sound a bit slower out there today, so maybe someone will go looking. The halibut bite was off yesterday but so was the number of fishermen trying for halibut. More to report later.

Very good salmon bite from Bird Rock to the north end of McLure's Beach. Fish were caught in water from 40 to 90 feet deep, from 20 feet to 60 feet down. Not everyone caught but many boats limited out. Best bets were watermelon Apex, straight bait and bait behind a dodger. Five of our six were caught on a green hoochy but I didn't hear of anyone else doing the same. Best salmon bite in three years!

Monday's rough water gave up this 20# salmon for Bob King.
Mr. King was kind enough to allow Tom Gerbi to catch the big fish of the day, this 27 pounder. The wind dropped during the day yesterday, so by late afternoon it was only really uncomfortable water conditions, down from kidney-damaging, waves rolling over the boat water conditions. Well, whatever makes the fish bite, I guess.

It is rough outside but the salmon are biting. The boats that toughed it out caught limits or near limits in front of Bird Rock. Not too many boats toughed it out. Nine foot seas and 20 to 30 knot winds outside made the water more than a little uncomfortable. Let's hope the salmon stick around.

A late report from Saturday: more salmon were caught than first reported. The waters around Bird Rock had fish up to 32 pounds. The water has a brown tint to it, about 59 degrees, and the salmon had bellies full of anchovies. Now the wind is forecast to blow for four days. This would be a good time for the forecasters to be wrong.

Halibut and salmon were slow today. A few salmon off of Bird. Halibut were scattered with many boats fishless. An eight foot long thresher shark "released itself" off of Dillon Beach after a 40 minute fight. For the shore casters, leopard shark in the shallows in the cove a quarter mile south of the seawall. Rockfishing was slow and a little painful from all the jellyfish.

Haley Porter of Dillon Beach caught this 29# halibut on a live jacksmelt on the bar yesterday. There were a few other halibut caught on the far end of Ten Mile Beach, but none nearly as big. Tom Brodski and Ron Johnson lost a white seabass that someone else had already lost. They snagged a line that tangled their gear and discovered that a WSB was on the end before it broke off. Losing a fish once is bad enough... Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the fishermen lost on Ten Mile on Wednesday. Let's all remember that it is a dangerous place out there no matter your level of experience.

Marty Medin of Inverness shows off the halibut that he and his buddy Bob caught. The 25.5 pounder had both of their baits and hooks in her mouth. Luckily there's plenty to share. They had one other halibut and caught them all near Abbot's Lagoon while drifting live jacksmelt.

For the halibut divers, I hear that the halibut were on the bar on Sunday. The fishermen couldn't get them to bite though. No brown water yet. Some halibut were still biting on Ten Mile and McLures Beach, the biggest weighed here being a 23 pounder caught by Tom Treadway of Sacramento. The fish counter said that on Friday he checked 48 boats at Bodega Bay and counted 36 salmon. No white seabass yet but I heard a two more "I got spooled!" stories today. The spooling seems to be happening on the north part of Ten Mile. A 5 foot thresher shark was caught and released near Hog Island on Sunday.

A French Lesson

I often hear about new techniques or methods in fly fishing that I feel I should perhaps look a little bit deeper into, well 'French Nymphing' was definitely one of those things.

Having witnessed its effectiveness recently during the Commonwealth Fly Fishing Championships I decided it was time to put it to the test. I purchased the necessary bits and pieces and read what information was available on the Internet...most of which was obtained from The FlyFishingPoint website which is a great starting point for anyone interested in learning more about this style of fishing.

A long rod with a soft action is key to maximising the potential and my 10' 6" #5 was perhaps one or two AFTM ratings too high (going by the number of bounce offs I had), but enabled me to get to grips with the concept.

Target rivers last weekend were the River Irfon & the upper River Wye both in desperate need of some water...both perfect to test the French Nymphing technique. I fished 2 small tungsten head nymphs (#16/18) on a 1.5 metre long tippet which was separated by the hi-viz braided indicator from the 9 metre long tapered leader.

Ideal water to try out 'French Nymphing'

I was nothing short of shocked how this method caught fish from water that you could easily ignore and out of a total of three sessions (including one of my best ever Wye Grayling catches) the results have confirmed to me that this can be a deadly method.

One of two double 'hook ups'  I had from the River Wye

As with all styles of fly fishing it has its day, this is possibly not really a method for slow moving water or small stream fishing with over-hanging trees and snaggy riverbeds...but on its day it will out score most other conventional fly fishing disciplines. Give it a go and see for yourself.

John Rosasco of Stockton with a nice 25# halibut he jigged up off of Ten Mile.
Blair Farnham of Woodland with his first salmon. It weighed 22.5 pounds and was caught just below Bird. A 23# salmon was caught there yesterday by Don Dailey of Elk Grove. The salmon fishing isn't great but there's enough out there to make it interesting. Halibut is the better bet. For every salmon brought in there has been around ten halibut. Rockfishing is slow, especially with strong current and lots of jellyfish in the deeper water.

Thursday was a bad day to be a halibut but a good day to fish for them. Many halibut limits from Ten Mile and a few salmon thrown in besides. Friday saw more boats on the beach fishing but a lot less catching. High boats had around four 'buts. Salmon from the beach, McLure's and off of Bird Rock, not many but enough to keep the boats from leaving. Rumors of white sea bass on the beach. No sardines yet.

Jerry Knedel caught this 23# halibut at McLure's Beach yesterday on a live jacksmelt. A few other halibut were caught there yesterday, but the best halibut bite was off the towers on Ten Mile. One salmon was released from there as well.

Mike Garello of Riverbank shows off two of his three halibut he caught while trolling on Ten Mile beach today. The biggest went 21# and they all bit herring. He lost two others. The water was 54 degrees.

Kari Munson with her first salmon limit, plus Ron Johnson's fish. These fish were caught last Saturday in front of Bird Rock. Yesterday saw some nice rockfish come in and a 54" leopard shark.

About 12 boats went out from here for salmon yesterday. Six salmon were caught on three of the boats and most of the rest lost fish. The weather was better than it has been but still breezy and cold. The rockfish bite was OK when you could get your line to the bottom (fast drift). The forecast shows no wind, so let the water warming begin.

New Zealand In Herefordshire

Approaching this small river in Herefordshire I could tell that my tactics for this Sunday afternoon were going to need a little thought.

I've not seen the River Lugg as low as this for a long time and as I walked downstream I could see that there were plenty of fish in the faster, more oxygenated water but were all nervous and darting for cover at the slightest sound or movement.

The 'New Zealand' style of fishing is basically where a small nymph (#16 or smaller) is tied on to a length of line around 12"-24" long and then tied to the bend of the hook on a dry fly (Klinkhamer works extremely well). The dry fly helps to support the nymph and also acts as an indicator to detect the slightest of takes.

There is a well written article here

Under such situations where the majority of the water is 2ft deep or less this method is deadly because it creates the minimum amount of disturbance and as long as your approach is with stealth the fish will readily take both nymph and dry.

I ended with good quantities of both Trout and Grayling, although I have always found that most of the 'Moms & Dads' of the Grayling world tend to lie in the deeper water where a totally different method is called for...I shall hopefully return soon to try and tempt one or two to give themselves up.

Kelsey Perceval of Fremont shows off her 25# king salmon. She caught it south of Bird Rock in about 50 to 60 feet of water on a lure (she won't say which) and barefoot. I'm going to have to try barefoot fishing if it will put fish like this one in the boat. Several other salmon were caught in the same area and there was even a double-header. It doesn't take that long for the fish to bite once the wind eases. Halibut in the bay, from Hog Island to near Inverness, not red hot but some people were lucky. Many sharks near Marshall. Good forecast for the week.

Really windy the last two days, just windy today. No ocean report, but some halibut from the bay. Two halibut came from Marshall on the troll. Quite a few people trying for sharks and rays but so far no one is coming by to brag afterward. Dungeness season is closed now, so the red crabs had better watch out.