Monday, October 7, 2013

Oct 2013 Coastal Update, part 3


Salmon



The salmon season is finally coming to an end. What a ride! And to think, 4 years ago everyone was predicting the end of salmon on the West Coast. Go figure! That's what 3 years of upwelling and a more sane water management policy will do (ie: bring the salmon back). Although the numbers are down (everywhere except in the rivers), there are still some donkey-sized salmon coming back to the docks. And if ever there was a time to go throw a mooching rig off of Yellow Bluff, this is it! I would imagine they are nailing salmon at Rodeo right now, but I haven't checked the reports in a while. The catch totals on the Klamath this month were... yes I'm going to use this word now... reedonckulous.


Sardines



As can be predicted, there have been quite a few sardines running in and around 3rd street. Monkeyface Operative 007, aka: Champion de la Banana, reports he caught 38 sardines in two hours of jigging with a (totally legal) 3 hook Sabiki near Agua Vista Pier a week ago. I have no idea why sardines forego all the other areas of the bay, and show up on that dilapidated shoreline every year, but they do and I'm not going to complain about it. The popular wisdom tells us that bio-accumulation is a non-issue in species like sardines. Especially in areas where they are merely passing through.


Surf Smelt



My surf smelt woes have now reached epic proportions. The truth is, they just did not run this year. Talking to the old timers out on the beaches, everyone tells me that surf smelt are streaky. They will typically run hard for a few years and then disappear for a few years. That seems to be what's happening. I mean we had 4 stellar years in a row, hard to ask for more than that. Still I can only adequately express my disappointment in verse. So I will now wax haikuic.


Fish Haiku #2139
(From: The Smelt Diaries, Book III, ch, 7., p. 238)

Surf smelt in the foam
Were you just a dream of mine?
Or will you return?


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