Bait Fishing

The wind has been keeping most people off the water. Forty mile-per-hour gusts can make the bay get nasty. However, the halibut fishermen are waiting for the first window to get out because a learned regular has maintained that when shiner perch are biting off the pier, there are halibut on the bar. And the shiners were and are biting like piranha. On Monday, I experienced the best pier fishing I have ever seen. In twenty minutes, my brother and I filled a bucket with jacksmelt, shiners, herring, topsmelt, and even a sardine. I can tell you from personal experience that anything you can catch off the pier will work as better bait than anything you buy frozen.

While there are undoubtedly many ways to catch bait, a very successful way to do it is with Sabiki rigs. The hooks you see below are small enough for these fish to bite and, while it sometimes helps, they don't need to be topped off with bait. If you decide to, remember to only cut pieces small enough that they cover the tip of the hook. Because they come with six hooks, untangling them can be a pain. If you are worried about tangling this nightmare of a rig, try cutting it into two separate rigs. They will (hopefully) tangle less, and if you lose one on the pier pilings, no need to worry. Children love to fish these off of the pier, but always use supervision. A couple years ago, I used my trusty Leatherman to take one of these out of a man's hand. He was almost certainly intoxicated, but that didn't numb the pain much. The swearing and Oh Dear God Make It Stop were a dead giveaway. While his was a rare case (the hook was halfway buried into the meaty part of the thumb), you should use caution with these and any hooks.

Crab Snares

Salmon fishing has been slow, but the bite should commence sometime this month. Crabbing is also toning down. Surfperch fishing is on the rise again and is very successful when you're in the fish.

Today, the crabbing could have been better, but the crabs that came in surprised me. There were crabs brought in with traps, but the majority of them were brought in with a contraption like this one.

Crab snares are attached to a fishing line and left on the bottom while the bait (hopefully) attracts some takers. When the line is jerked, the loops close around a crab's limbs and is brought up to the pier. The boathouse has two main types: the cheap China-made and the more high-end expensive variant.

Krill

There have been big schools of krill massing just inside of the bay. They are swimming right up by the surface, so I got to discover that krill are quite tasty. No wonder everything in the ocean eats them. But, more importantly, something must be attacking them from underneath to expose themselves to the birds. No one has yet tried fishing in the krill, though, so I don't know if the salmon have gotten close yet. Last Sunday was very windy, but the rest of the week was warm and windless. I did my best not to blink. Don't worry though, things are back to normal and chilly again. In other news, I saw an interesting video of crabbing at Lawson's Landing by a rather nice fellow. Here is the link. While marveling at the crabs, notice the door the camera can see. It is wide open and if "wrybread" hadn't pulled up his pot shortly, he wouldn't have any crabs. I cannot stress enough how important it is to weight the doors on the crab pots.

With krill on the mind, I want to tell you how to catch the little morsels. I used a five-gallon bucket, but that's because they were practically jumping out of the water. They usually don't do that, so I would suggest a shrimp pot.

Though very similar in design to the crab pot, the mesh is much smaller. Crab pots are legally bound to have a significant hole to let out the undersized ones. These have no such boundaries. Will you catch krill with it? Nope. Krill are far too small to not fall out of that mesh. That's okay though; you want bigger ones. My suggestion is to get multiple pots and spread them out in deep water (100-250 ft). Come back in an hour, pull them up and put them all where you found the majority of them.