Tomales, yesterday and today

One hali about 30" yesterday with a couple other missed pulldowns.
Today 3 leopards and several other missed pulldowns. They fight hard!
Fishing with live sardines and mackerel.
We didn't get to fish all day because of the wind, but the conditions granted early in the day were exceptional.
I want to go back!

Good looking color on the water. I am glad to see someone catches halibut in Tomales Bay. Lets see is that 5 days on the bay for you in the last week? You are driven my friend. Did you make bait on the other side of hog in the deeper water? Congrats Juan.

Congrats on the hali from yesterday Juan. How big were the leopard sharks today?
I love the fight they give especially on light tackle. BTW, do you have a trailing
hook setup on the live bait?

Jedmo

Congrat on the Hali.  The water looks so nice.  Thanks for the report and pictures Juan.  BTW,  no Hali picture?

Jedmo, the live bait is 8" plus. So yes, I use a two-single hook rig, hooks about 9" apart. The sharks were about 5 feet long, 20 lbs? They were big enough to not want to bother getting my hooks back. I cut them off close to the mouth.
Sailfish, here's what my 30 incher looks like...

Sailfish, here's what my 30 incher looks like...

Ahhh...look a little smaller than my 38 incher 

Very Nice...

 I'll be there 20, 21, 22, 23...

WTG Juan! Looks like alot of fun out there. Im still waiting to land a shark off the yak. nice pics

Great pics - nice one.   

Juan
On Tue. When opportunity knocked, my line parted at the knot. I'm hoping that during my rush to tie a two hook leader OTW that my normal knot wasn't tied. It was windy and I had never before caught a live sardine. I do however thank you for your hook tying lesson offer. I do suspect though that you never tried to teach an old dog, a new trick. If you send me your address by PM I will mail what I meant to tie. Much Thanks 
dave...

WTG Juan, congrats.

Sonny, it looks like you kept the roe? How do you prepare it to eat? I'm assuming you ate it cuz it was in the pan with the fish pieces.

     Wednesday I managed  to land a day off and headed to Tomales. Met up with Juan and pushed off into a pretty heavy fog so we both consulted our compasses, picked a heading, and started out. Within a couple minutes we could see the dark outline of Hog Island...right on course.
     Schools of bait were jumping everywhere so making bait was easy once you found ones that wanted to bite. Drifting with the outflow in 35 fow I got my first take down and it was a violent one, fish on!...fish off! That was my only mackerel at the time so I switched to  a small shiner and headed out to get more bait. I headed to a cove to make bait and Juan drifted inland with the now incoming tide and onshore breeze. I got lost in making bait...catching smelt longer than useful and then loading up on mackerel. I was having a blast catching many baits at a time and finally landed a couple just the right size. The couple times I called Juan on the radio he was busy landing sharks so I stayed where I was.
     The wind came up making a slow drift impossible so I headed into a cove for shelter. Just about the time I was ready to give up when my rod tip did a little juggle and I spun around, gave it some time to load up...fish on. The halibut gave me the usual fight up to the boat and just as she got to the gaff....she took another run. The next time she came close I was ready and put the fish in the boat. I was going to keep fishing in the cove but  the conditions were only getting worse and knowing I had to cross the bay I radioed  Juan  to tell him I was going in and he replied (while fighting another shark) he was going to do the same.
      Tomales is a beautiful place to fish. Another beautiful day on the water.

Congrats Juan!!! Man u cover a lot of ground fishing...WTG Do u ever eat the leapords??? damn tasty...

NJ jaun! Good to see someone had some luck that day (I talked to yall on the docks shortly before you set out in the morning). We hooked into a shark which popped the line soon as I picked up the rod and had two strikes with no set.... very slow day for us.