Whale Watching Adventure

June 24, 2020

I went fishing today.

I got up at 5 a.m. Got dressed. Packed up my stuff. Drove to the boat to meet Greg, Earl and Roe. We quickly got the boat ready and departed out the Golden Gate in sloppy weather. There was enough wind and swell that Greg had to go pretty slow.

We had to decide whether to go North to Marin or South to Pacifica. Greg had inside info that the party boats caught salmon yesterday near Pacifica. South we went. We got outside the Gate and proceeded down the coast, off Ocean Beach. Kind of foggy. Blustery. Almost immediately after passing Seal Rock, we began to see whales. We made our way slowly south, the five miles or so to Pacifica. There, we saw more whales and lots of birds (a good sign for salmon fishing) and put our trolling gear in the water.

For the next four or five hours, we followed the whales and the birds; among the dozen or so other boats doing the same. All the good signs were there. I remained optimistic, though, we saw very few fish caught by other boats. The "party boats" (open charters taking lots of paying customers fishing) were there. Another good sign. They do it for a living so they usually know where the fish are.

Dozens of whales. They were everywhere, putting on a show.

Birds galore: murres, pelicans and gulls. At one point, Earl hooked a murre. We got it to the boat and gently released it. Birds don't count. The skunk was still on.

At about 1:30 or 2 p.m., all the party boats suddenly motored to the northwest. All the other boats, including us, followed. They MUST know where the hot bite is at. The fleet motored five miles or so to the outside of the channel buoys that lead in to the Golden Gate. We put in the trolling gear and looked around. No signs of life; dead.

Earl suggested we troll northward to the "middle grounds" - toward the Marin Coast. It was that or give up. So we trolled the middle grounds, all the way around the North Bar of the entrance to SF Bay to the Marin Coast; Probably another five miles or so. Aside from a few false alarms when we encountered jelly fish, we had no action all day. Not a bite.

Not that we did not have fun. I continued to feel optimistic until 3:30 when we called it a day. We had a lively discussion about the political tides; we feel like they are turning our way. Earl and I shared some lawyer's war stories. Greg and I talked about workers comp evaluations. Roe gave me some photo editing lessons.