HKUP Tomales Friday 5/31

Nice work, fellas!  I’d say the bite is on. I’ll be out there tomorrow with the 100 other boats!

Monday for me...hope you geetum!

Beautiful day today at Tomales. Such an awesome place. It was a one bite, one keeper kind of day for me that almost wasn’t. There was a moment when the fish was airborne as it went beserk mode in the net in my lap. With a swift and squirmy kick against my thigh, the fish popped out of the net and was up to my face. He had come up easy enough and by its weight and my first visual, I was confident that it was a keeper. He went in the net easy, but all hell broke loose once I got him out of the water. The moment he was out of the net and landed on my leg, time froze. My adrenaline spiked. I remembered in a flash someone on NCKA talking about grabbing shaker halibuts by the tail. I gotta do this! With my left hand I grabbed the tail with a death grip as I reached behind my seat with my right hand for my fish club. Meanwhile, I look down and one of his teeth is in my wetsuit right behind my knee, and he’s doing the creepy chomp chomp thing. I lift the fish away and at that moment we both knew that with one kick, he could be gone. My adrenaline peaking, I found a spot for his head on my deck and I clubbed the sh!t out of that fish. It was primal and thoroughly satisfying. I got the clip on and quickly slit its gills. I thanked the fish and the amazing surroundings. It took a little bit to calm down from that. The rest of the day was completely peaceful and uneventful.  Not even a scratch.  Hooked up in ~35’ FOW, deep channel west of hog island, around 8:30 am on a slow bounce ball of a frozen herring. 25”, 5.25 lbs, according to young lady from DFG conducting surveys.

PS-not sure if Larry and his crew are on NCKA but glad y’all found Larry!! You guys had me worried there for a bit.

Yay Koji...you are doing it!  Great 2 kayak pic...

Wow a halibut limit and a WSB! ThatÂ’s impressive!

Late start for me, I was on the water around 9. I seemed to get there just as everyone was netting their halibuts! By the time I had made my bait the bite had died off. Stuck with it for another few hours before catching my PB kayak striper! 36”” and 18#


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That striper is da beast...take a nap technique?   

Wow!  Great report everyone. 

Matt, that striper is a beast!  Nice fish.

Y'all killed it yesterday ! Nicely done. 

Amazing!...Gotta love Tomales Bay.

Impressive day on the water you guys!

Might go again tomorrow. The low tide is going to make for an interesting launch, but my day just opened up.

First, thanks you guys for looking out for Larry.  The short story is it was Larry's first day out, conditions were warm and flat calm.. a great start for him.. only better would have been if he hooked up.  Larry's radio got switched to a different channel so he couldn't hear us calling and when the wind came up the guy I thought was larry wasn't him.. so yeah we were a little concerned.. but it was pretty nice to have the big NCKA family looking out for him. Thanks for that.
On the fishing.... there is a special despair when the guys to right and left are boating flatties, and when  you ask 'em what their using.. you're using the same... Same place, same time, same bait, no fish! I ended the day with one shark that I tossed back. I will never have a day where I'm in the right place and time any better than yesterday, but none of the 3 of us got a flattie or a striper. 
For those cheerleaders saying we killed it.... the F&G gal said she counted 22 parties (1-3 people ea) and 9 halibut.. so it was not fish in a barrel by a long shot...but excellent job to those who slayed 'em. I'm going to follow that blue kayak around closely next time. Bluefin is some kind of special fish whisperer!
Thanks for finding Larry!