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Looks like there is a bit of a revival of this once fun forum. I even see some fishing reports returning. I will try to post some reports here with what we are catching. I will try to keep it to just this thread so you can skip over it if you dont want to see them. I wont disclose locations but will try to say what I was looking for, what I am seeing, how we are fishing, etc. Hopefully even answer questions and get suggestions from others too.
Though this winter has been the best winter for open water fishing for big fish I have ever experienced on the bay with the water never dropping below 40 degrees, I will just start with what we have been seeing over the last week. When I say fishing has been great this winter, that does not mean every trip is a homerun or we are seeing the conistancy of the spring, summer and fall. It just means that the number of migrant fish we have caught on light tackle has been well above normal. We even had one trip where we caught around 40 fish over 40". I have never seen something like this on the bay since moving here in 1997. It rivaled an excellent ocean trip. On the other hand I have had some very slow trips including catching maybe 3 resident fish with over 100+ miles. It is still the winter and there is no better time to land a trophy sized fish on light tackle and opportunites seem to have been the greatest this year.
I ran 3 trips last week and we were successful on each and everyone on landing at least 1 trophy fish over 40". We had 1 on Tuesday and lost another, both just drifting the channel edge on big bait balls with fish marks around them . We did find a bit of bird show also and had some good steady activity. Wednesday my radar showed me a gannet show not once but twice. We landed 6 over 40" and lost 2 or 3 others. We also had good action on fish into the low 30's It was a home run day. We chased fish even into 21' of water, which makes for great easy fishing. Of course Thursday would not be the same because everyday is different. We did end up with 3 fish over 40" with two of them over 45 on light tackle. Birds were no help and This was a grind day. We fished the bait balls in the deep again. We did boat about a dozen or so fish though. This coming week looks windy but I hope to get a couple of days.
Here are a few photos to go with the report:
Here are a couple of fish
Tuesday
![Water Vertebrate Fish Fisherman Smile]()
Wednesday
![Water Vertebrate Cloud Sky Fisherman]()
Thursday
![Water Sky Cloud Mammal Sleeve]()
Without the help of birds I am looking for bait balls with fish on them on the channel edge like this:
![Output device Rectangle Gadget Font Gps navigation device]()
In addition to my radar, which is great at showing birds, I love my side scan. While the gain and clutter settings are not great, you can see fish breaking up the ball to the starboard side.
![Automotive lighting Automotive tail & brake light Television set Window Display device]()
Here are a couple shorts of the action we had:
www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com
Though this winter has been the best winter for open water fishing for big fish I have ever experienced on the bay with the water never dropping below 40 degrees, I will just start with what we have been seeing over the last week. When I say fishing has been great this winter, that does not mean every trip is a homerun or we are seeing the conistancy of the spring, summer and fall. It just means that the number of migrant fish we have caught on light tackle has been well above normal. We even had one trip where we caught around 40 fish over 40". I have never seen something like this on the bay since moving here in 1997. It rivaled an excellent ocean trip. On the other hand I have had some very slow trips including catching maybe 3 resident fish with over 100+ miles. It is still the winter and there is no better time to land a trophy sized fish on light tackle and opportunites seem to have been the greatest this year.
I ran 3 trips last week and we were successful on each and everyone on landing at least 1 trophy fish over 40". We had 1 on Tuesday and lost another, both just drifting the channel edge on big bait balls with fish marks around them . We did find a bit of bird show also and had some good steady activity. Wednesday my radar showed me a gannet show not once but twice. We landed 6 over 40" and lost 2 or 3 others. We also had good action on fish into the low 30's It was a home run day. We chased fish even into 21' of water, which makes for great easy fishing. Of course Thursday would not be the same because everyday is different. We did end up with 3 fish over 40" with two of them over 45 on light tackle. Birds were no help and This was a grind day. We fished the bait balls in the deep again. We did boat about a dozen or so fish though. This coming week looks windy but I hope to get a couple of days.
Here are a few photos to go with the report:
Here are a couple of fish
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Without the help of birds I am looking for bait balls with fish on them on the channel edge like this:
In addition to my radar, which is great at showing birds, I love my side scan. While the gain and clutter settings are not great, you can see fish breaking up the ball to the starboard side.
Here are a couple shorts of the action we had:
March 3, 2023
www.youtube.com
45” rockfish dumping line on light tackle.
www.youtube.com
