Hi everybody. Kirk here. Time for yet another belated coastal
update! Better late than never. Let's see. Lots of stuff going on in
fish biz. My new seafood company (Seaforager Seafood) is going to
launch any day now (I swear it by gum!) Just getting things together
with my supply chain(s), licensing, web merchants... etc. Yikes, never
realized how much stuff goes into starting a business! Anyway, we're
pushing the launch par-tay back to the end of August or maybe early
September. This will likely be an epic event--with sea chanties, passed
fishy h'ors deouvres and a meet and greet with local fishermen. All of
this at a very cool Mission District pub. Thanks to all of those folks
who have waited patiently, and sent e-mails of support. It's much
appreciated and actually gives us a good sense of how many people will
be signing up, at least initially.
I was planning on promoting our upcoming event at The Marin
Headlands Center For The Arts, but the durned thing sold out in less
than a week! Bummer. I mean, that's kind of a gold-plaited problem but
still, it woulda been cool to have some of my own peeps in the crowd.
Oh well, next time I'll advertise it sooner.
Now all we have to do is catch enough fish in three days to feed a hundred people... the pressure is on!
KQED
By the way, everybody should turn on to KQED on Thursday morning at
10:00. I'm going to be on Forum, with Michael Krazny. Only thing is
"the Kraz" is on vacation so it's someone else interviewing us. Hank
Shaw and the folks from Forage SF are also on the show.
Now for the literary foragers out there...
A Good Read:
I just finished reading Bill Heavey's incredibly funny look at the nouveau foraging (faux-raging) movement:
It's Only Slow Food Until You Try To Eat It.
Frog gigging in the bayou, back yard cross bow squirrel irradication,
and yes, even an up close look at the SF hipster foraging scene.
Including a very spot on assessment of yours truly. This book has now
become my favorite read on the subject of hunting and gathering. Steve
Rinella be-damned. Bill is the best outdoor writer in the country. For
my money. Check out his book here:
It's Only Slow Food...
Near Death Experience
Not really but it sounds better than "near painful encounter with a
seldom seen Bay Area fish experience." So I was doing a city tour the
other day and one of my customers yelled:
hey there's a skate! Everybody
was standing up on the Marina Green wall, and I was down on the water
and didn't have a good angle on the so called "skate." So I grabbed my
aluminum handled net and scrambled along the rocks hoping to get a
chance to scoop him out of the water. I was poised atop the sewer duct
which will one day no doubt bear my name, when suddenly it occurred to
me that I had never seen this species of ray before. I had thought all
along that it was a California thornback, but on closer inspection I
could see it was way too big for a thornback and not really shaped the
same way. Too circular. Too many black spots on its back.
Why You Should Consider Reading Milton Love
Don't tread on me.
Well, the thing is, I spend so much
time with Milton Love's book, it's not like I'm going to be fooled into
netting an electric ray. And even though it did not look like all the
pictures of the species one sees online, I'd glossed over his electric
ray chapter enough times to have a sort of sub conscious recognition of
the species. 7 years as a fish checker, 23 years as a Bay Area
fisherman and I'd never seen an electric ray. Then a 4.5 footer swims
past me in 18 inches of water in the middle of one of my tours. Go
figya! Anyway, here's some footage from one of my tour goers, Charlie
Hale. Thanks Charlie!
The estimable Dr. Love tells us that this species delivers a charge
of around 45 volts. Not enough to kill but certainly enough to knock
out a guy with an aluminum handled net, standing knee deep in the
water... maybe knock his fillings out and maybe send him to the
emergency room. These things all have deeper significance to a person
who has no health insurance. Feel me?
Salmon
Not
sure if I posted this already, but I love this picture, so even if I
did I don't care. My dear friend and commercial salmon fisherman Sharky
von Sharkenheimer holds the happy end of a great white's lunch. No one
in the fleet had seen one up to that point and yet on two consecutive
days Sharky lost a salmon to great whites. Of course "Sharky" got his
nickname from surviving a brutal mauling off South Africa back in the
eighties. You can ask him all about it when you buy salmon from his
boat, Miss Larene, in Half Moon Bay: Sea Forger discount: 5 percent!
It should come as no surprise to
anybody that I am somewhat loath to go on at great lengths about salmon.
The infer-web is exploding with salmon info right now. Just as the
seas are exploding with big fat hawgs. The numbers have been great
because we've been so deprived (remember the season was closed 3-4 years
ago), but according to several old timers, we still aren't even
approaching the numbers that were caught in bumper years like 2004. I
haven't had time to confirm this by looking at catch statistics, but it
was interesting to listen to a few old pros at the wharf talking about
"big years" in days gone by. Not that anybody is complaining about this
amazing season. Although the action has dropped off a bit in the last
two weeks, just remember the fish that are scattered north of the bay
are all headed towards the Golden Gate at some point, (something like
99.9 percent of the fish in local waters spawn in the Sacramento) and
when they do, there will be some fairly cool shore fishing options.
Especially from the cliffs at Yellow Bluff and further up bay at Rodeo, Ca.
Scenic Rodeo California. You too could catch a salmon here.
But don't forget the party boats. One of the best boats in the whole fleet is Sausalito's Outer Limits.
I won't lie. The boats I promote on this site are all the boats that
didn't hassle me and give me a pain in the ass when I was a fish
checker. You guys have no idea how much it sucks to be on board a CPFV
where you are made to feel unwelcome. That was never the case with the
Outer Limits, and all the other boats I mention on this blog. In
addition, everyone knows that the Outer Limits and the New Rayanne
are the top dawgs in the fleet. And launching from Sausalito this time
of year, you've got the shortest trip to the salmon of any harbor in
the bay. As I've said before, I'm also a big fan of The New Captain Pete, The Huli Cat and the Queen Of Heart's down in HMB.
Goodbye Big Tides
It's a bummer, but what can you do? Complain to the moon? Lodge a
protest with Poseidon? The big minus tides of 2013 are gone till
November. Nevertheless, if you want to eat clams during the quarantine,
littlenecks are reachable on anything +0.5 and lower. And my best
cabezon days are always on tides between 0.0 and +1.3... Not sure why,
but cabbies sure seem to like these tides. Grass rockfish too.
Sea Weeds
Real wakame! N
ote the stipe down the middle of the blade.
Man the late spring and early summer this year was absolutely busting
loose with nori. And despite the fact that we're deep into the summer,
I'm still seeing some nice patches along the coast. Nori starts to
whither and decay towards the end of summer, but lots of it is still
holding strong as of this writing. I am also quite happy to report that
my favorite little inner city stand of wakame has returned with a
vengeance. Lots of fear and loathing for the invasive wakame in these
parts. In fact there was a group of people going around the bay for a
while eradicating the stuff. I have not read anything that states
invasive wakame is particularly problematic. Yes it fouls the bottoms
of boats and docks (grows 6 feet per month), but it sure is delicious.
I plucked some from my favorite spot and roasted it in the oven for a
few minutes... came out crunchy and salty. Awesome stuff. Thing is,
picking wakame and other seaweeds from under a busy boat dock is
somewhat problematic. Kind of like picking raspberries from a bush
located in a toxic dump site... or worse. Since seaweeds do pick up
heavy metals and radiation from the environment. But I did it anyway.
Only ate an ounce or two. If you want to see what real Japanese wakame
looks like in the wild, go to Pier 1.5 in SF (between Piers 1 and 3).
If you decide to pick some, don't go crazy. Only eat a few ounces.
Forage Fish
Well... what really can be said? It's
all about the lizard fish and anchovies right now. Unfortunately most
of the latter are of the pinheaad variety. And as far as the former I
have as yet found no way to turn them into something even remotely
palatable. And I know this can be done! Please send me a lizard fish
ecipe somebody!
Right now there is a school of
'chovies stretching from the middle of HMB to Ocean Beach. OK maybe it's
several huge schools, but the water is just crawling with 'em righ now.
Mostly pinheads though.
Day and Night
The joys of smelt jumping. No more trips for 2013, but I'll be offering them again this spring.
Once again not much to report on the day fish (surf smelt), though I
finally succeeding in catching my first two pounds of 2013. Unreal this
is happening in August. I mean
damn. Last year they ran from
April through September. The night fish ran great all month and frankly
my guided trips were a blast. Only 1 night out of six could have been
called a skunk, and even then everybody had enough for a dinner or two.
Surf Perch Season Opens
Nothing
I like more than catching surf perch. Too bad they are so underwhelming
as a food fish. Anyway, not everyone feels this way, and there's quite a
few big perch coming out of the south bay right now. It always strikes
me as odd that we get so many barred surf perch deep in the south bay.
I'm saying like all the way down to the Dumbarton bridge. Most people
associeated barred perch with coastal beaches, but no! Lots of these
suckers over sandy bottom in the south bay. Grass shrimp, ghost shrimp
of pieces of store bought "head-on" shrimp work well, as do pile worms
and pieces of mussel.
Halibut
There
have been a few decent bites in the East Bay, but the south bay (where I
fish halibut) has been awful. I watched a literal ton of cali hali
unloaded at Fisherman's Wharf recently, so we know there must be a few
out there past three miles... but damn, I can't catch one to save my
swim baits.
Albacore: A few fish have been caught out at the 601 and
The Guide Seamount. More on this next month.
Stripers: Nothing
to speak of... the bay has been dead and the surf casting crew is
starting to get a little frustrated. Again more on this next month!
Parting Shots
I'm afraid I've got to cut it short right here. Looking forward to
the salmon moving closer to the gate in the next month. The fact that I
got one pound of day smelt today is encouraging... Look out for the big
launch party for my Seaforager Seafood business at the end of August.
Anywho, until September... see you at, on or in the H20.
