Kabir's Big Catch

I took my friend Kabir Sawhney fishing yesterday. I got home exhausted and fell into bed at 9 p.m. No blog last night.

We left Lumina at 6 a.m. Got the boat ready quickly and left the dock at 6:20. Longest line of boats ever for live bait at fisherman's wharf. Good weather + weekend = long line. We also got ice. I wish I had a picture. You pull your boat up to an overhead wharf and open your ice chest on the deck of the boat. The ice man deftly throws huge shovel fulls of crushed ice into the cooler. Ten dollars for a cooler full. Pretty good deal. We debated about whether or not to get ice since we both forgot to bring any. I have lots of fish so we considered just catching and releasing anything we caught. I decided we should get the ice - just in case.

We pulled out of fisherman's wharf and headed to Angel Island where I have had a lot of success recently. We had two quick LDR's (long distance releases - meaning we had a fish on the line and fought it for a while but it got off - i.e. we screwed up somehow). Then one scratched bait (bitten but not taken). We saw a bunch of other boats catching fish. Somehow, it did not seem like the right spot for us.

Kabir brought his drone. He tried to fly it from our drift by Angel Island but it was too windy. It hit the side of the boat upon takeoff and we aborted.

We picked up some gas in Jack London Square. Off to Alameda to fish some more. I found the general area, off the Alameda Naval Air Station, where Greg caught a halibut on Wednesday. We dropped our lines to the bottom for our first drift. I immediately realized that the current was taking us north instead of south - the opposite direction from what I intended. Oh well. We went with the flow. Within a few minutes, Kabir's reel suddenly  buzzed  - the beautiful sound of a fish taking out line. With a little coaching, he managed to get the fish to the side of the boat. A beautiful halibut. I missed on the first swing with my net. The fish took off on another run. Kabir got it close again and I netted it. Big fish. 31 inches long. 12 pounds. 


I clubbed it, removed the hook and let it out of the net. It still flopped around violently the way halibut sometimes do. They have been known to flop themselves overboard. Halibut have teeth and are not shy to use them. 


Once she calmed down, I dispatched her, bled her and we put her on ice. Good thing we got some.


Kabir got his drone in the air while we drifted. He got some great footage. I'll try to add it here. Hopefully it will work.



We tried one more fishing spot, the San Bruno Shoals, between SFO and the Oakland Airport. We caught a pretty big leopard shark (approx. 10 pounds) which we released.

Back to the dock. I filleted the fish. 



We cleaned up the boat and headed back home. Beth and I drove to Inverness. I ate dinner, had a couple of glasses of wine and collapsed in bed. 

Kabir took lots of great photos (I slipped in a few of mine):















:
the bear


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