Sunday I hooked up with my buddy Higgins, a huntin' fishin' machine. Well he does go outdoors a lot but neither he nor I had much experience halibut fishing in San Francisco bay.
There are 2 ways to do this. With live bait drifting over known halibt holding spots, know as the "flats" of the bay, or trolling some kind of assembly of hardware with a frozen bait or lure at the end. To get the live bait you either catch it or buy it. Here's some tips from Hi's.
We trolled 2 rigs with frozen bait. One is known as a DJB rig. It is a 3 way swivel on the end of your line with a dropper line and a weight on the end. The main rig has a leader, a flasher, 2 hoochies (no hooks yet) then a snelled hook (keep the tag end long) with a treble tied on the end about 5 inches below the first hook. Put in lots of swivels so it doesn't twist up.
Here's what it looks like. A local guy named DJB came up with it.
The other rig is a pre tied store bought rig made by a company (wellmaybe a guy) in Pacifica called Reel Image Fish-laser Products. It is a wire with a 3 way, and some flashers (like trout trolling flashers) with some fish eye stickers and laser treatments. At the end of this I used a RSK clip and a treble hook.
So me and Higgins (just some good old boys, never meaning no harm) set off from the Oakland Estuary and headed under the old and new Bay Bridges. (Hey look the speed limit signs are up on the new bridge!) As soon as I found 12 ft deep water we set out the gear. From just about the Bay Bridge to just about the Richmond Bridge and east of the end of the Berkeley pier ruins is a huge area of mud flats. It is well known for halibut fishing. If you take a party boat trip from Emeryville or Berkeley you can be fishing in just minutes.
After checking the tides we planned to fish from about 11 am to 3 pm. Halibut like small tides in clear water. Today didn't have really small tides, and the water wasn't that clear, but in reality the best time to go fishing is when you can.
Trolling as slow as I could, both engines in gear with throttles all the way back, we headed along a 10 ft line from Emeryville to Berkeley.
Boom, rod tip goes down, about 11:30. First fish on hitting the DJB rig. It comes to the boat, in the net, and is a 24 inch keeper. 1 in the box.
Now we are coming up on the Berkeley Pier ruins. Did you know it used to go 3.5 miles out into the bay! There was a 2 lane road on the pier that autos used to get on a car ferry to San Francisco! You can still go out on part of it, lots of people do, but there are still ruins out there in the bay pretty far.
We turned left and trolled out to the end then right and towards shore to get back on the 10 ft. line. The wind was picking up a little but we were ok so far. We made it up to an area off Golden Gate Fields and no other fish in the boat. So we thought we would troll back down home.
About 2:30 we were just above the pier ruins again headed south and the other rod goes off. Fish On! Woo Hoo a go home fish, the best kind! Higgins got it to the boat, I got the net and it was just about exactly the same size.
It was almost 3, we had 2 in the box, the wind was rockin' and rollin' and we headed home. With gas at the boat dock costing 4.90 a gallon it is nice to fish so close.
The wind was blowing directly into the Oakland Estuary, we passed some tugs waiting for a container ship, a few sailboats, and ended another great day on the bay about 4pm.
bigger photos here
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