Salmon Opener

I headed down to Moss Landing, a cool little town dead center in Monterey Bay, below Santa Cruz and above Monterey, to hop on the Kahuna with about 20 other people. It is a party boat, not meaning that they party on the boat, but it is an open boat, pay about 65 bucks, get on board. They provide your bait and deckhands net your fish. We were "mooching" or just drifting bait all day.

It was a slow day. 2 fish caught, 2 hooked but came off. I came home with zero salmon. Oh well. Monterey Bay is a cool place to spend a day, we saw a couple of whales, lots of birds and the sunshine gave me a raccoon tan from wearing my polarized fishing sunglasses all day.

The boat left at 6am, I left Oakland at 4am to drive down and have time to check in. Yes it was Easter Sunday. I downloaded an Easter service to listen to on the way down. It was my Sunrise Service.

No fish for my first trip of 07 is ok, I'll go out many more times this year. I made it out on opening weekend.

The "opener" is a big deal for sure. One of the fine outdoor writers for the SF Gate/Chron
explains the excitement in this article. Here's another Wacky Jackie article from a few years ago.

Wacky Jackie is quite a character on the bay. A real vet when it comes to salmon fishing. It is pretty fun to get off a salmon boat at Fisherman's Warf with a bag full of fish. The tourists freak out!

Here is an article from the NY Times on fishing out of SF.

And couple of places for more salmon info:

Listen to the boats marine radio chatter online at ShiptoShoreradio.com (I can't get it to work on my Mac)

Keep up to date with the latest fishing results at USAFishing.com

And here are 2 online groups with good fishing info and help

Coastside Fishing Club

and Full Speed Fishing Club

both welcome beginners, go have a look, and go salmon fishing in 2007!

A more plentiful day from 2004: