San Francisco Area Ocean Reports 10/20/06

[Wahoo!]

Golden Gate: The great wait for the great kingly horde wears on, even if
only one or two boats are still at it. Wednesday, it was the Outer
Limits, the big catamaran Outer Limits, the Sausalito charter boat Outer
Limits, Jimmy Robertson's enduring passion for salmon and business Outer
Limits, riding out the Gate toward the certainty of dawn and another
not-what-we'd-hoped-for day. It's the Heartache Coast, our famed and
fabled stretch of Marin, an immediate ocean so green and so full of
life, yet so utterly lacking in salmon. Bless the guy still, for if it
wasn't for Robertson, there would be no one. Just the ocean, bothered by
container ships on another fishless day. But here it was Wednesday, at
dawn, the Outer Limits putting in at Rocky Point on a tack for Duxbury
Buoy. Five minutes, 500 feet, and a rod comes alive. Then another.
Through the morning, the boat had seven chances. By 10:30, it didn't
have a chance. For the day, the score read five salmon for a dozen
anglers, with the fish ranging from 16 to 32 pounds.
Rockfish: On a typical day at the islands, by a more or less typical big
boat: The New Huck Finn (510-654-6040) made the run Sunday, pulling up
to the North Island. After a short while, with bait going up and down,
the boat had rockfish boiling on the surface, all around. The weights
then came off, and the anchovy and the swimbaits and the Shrimp Flies
and all the rest went out, fly lined over the surface, and that's how
they filled out their limits, with each fish fought without the burden
of lead. After that, they dropped down the big stuff for lingcod. For
the day: 30 limits of rockfish and 52 lingcod to 16 pounds. Closer
inshore, and further into the new week, there's The Dandy out of
Emeryville, trying for salmon and settling for groundfish along the
Marin coast, with six limits of rockfish and four lings to 10 pounds.
Crab-combo trips: The season for our crusty critters opens Nov. 11. At
least two local sportfishing centers offer combo trips (either for
Dungeness and rockfish and lingcod, or crab and sanddabs, or crab and
mackerel or crab and whatever's legal). One of them, Emeryville
Sportfishing (510-654-6040), is nearly booked opening weekend, and is
filling up the remaining weekends in November and December. The other
shop is Berkeley Sportfishing, (510) 849-2727. Farther south, out of
Pillar Point, the Huli Cat (650-726-2926) will be offering combo trips
that quite often include heaping piles of Humboldt squid.