Coastal Update Spring/Summer 2022
I'm back!
After a two + year Covid-induced hiatus from doing walking tours and on-shore fishing classes, I will be offering (limited) tours this year! But here's the thing. I want to take fewer people and prioritize private groups. I'm offering a single chartered halibut trip with Adam on Thursday, May 12th, plus new dates for my San Francisco coastal fishing & foraging walking tour and a couple Mega Low Tide tours in Half Moon Bay. Book those here: Sea Forager Tours and read details below!
I also want to take a moment to alert you guys to a couple of people you should know about. Cap'n Adam Sewell and Todd "King of Mushrooms" Spanier.
Adam and co. (left) and..... Todd Spanier (right)
First: Adam Sewell of Gatherer Outfitters. I've mentioned Adam quite a few times before. At the start of covid I was his main halibut buyer. But we've known each other for years. Remember this article? Homeschool Fishing Family
Anyway, Adam says he wants to expand beyond his usual clientele and pointed out that every time he has a Sea Forager member on his boat, he wonders... how do I get more people like these to sign up?
So we've hatched a plan: Adam is offering a 15% discount to all Sea Forager members for any halibut trip in SF Bay. In addition, I will be accompanying Adam on Thursday, May 12th for the Kirk And Adam Double Whammy Sea Forager Members Only Hali Adventure. So if you want to spend a day listening to me rail on and on (as I am wont to do) about fishing and coastal foraging, bay ecology, history, fisheries, sustainability and etc, while Adam puts you on the fish, then sign up now!
The other guide that I'd like to introduce you to is new friend Todd Spanier. Todd does his guiding in the forest. The founder of California Truffle Orchards and King of Mushrooms, Todd can teach you how to safely and happily hunt and gather your own mushrooms. But more than that, he will inspire you with the magic and wonder of our foggy northern Cali forests. As much as Todd may be the “King” of mushrooms, he's really more like the 7-foot tall “Yoda” of mushrooms! His weekend mushrooming expeditions target whatever types of mushrooms are in season, and the price includes room and board for the two days. You can read more about it by perusing the flier below. (You'll notice his phone # is on the flier if you have questions). There are still spots left for the May 14-15 Morel adventure.
Click the image for the larger, readable version.
Todd also does wholesale mushrooms and we look forward to providing some of his bounty in the next few weeks. Here's what a box of oyster mushrooms and wild fiddlehead ferns looks like below. They'll go great with our shrimp, cured salmon roe and sustainable fish sauce on our store! More add-ons available soon...
Let's Talk About The "S" Word
Lance Nacio (Pic from conserve fish.org)
For the first time in our existence, Sea Forager is offering shrimp in our store! Most shrimp farming and trawling is heinously unsustainable, but fisherman Lance Nacio goes through insane effort to sustainably harvest shrimp and minimize his impact, so we can finally enjoy shrimp!
We are thrilled to offer one pound blocks of plate-frozen-on-the-boat (!) deveined and de-headed medium sized gulf shrimp. Lance is exactly the type of fisherman we want to support. How many fishermen on the planet volunteer to adapt their gear types, to actually catch fewer fish and prevent endangered animals from getting killed, when they are not required by law to do so? Seriously. Bravo Lance, happy to finally be selling your shrimp. In fact I ate them for dinner last night. Yum. Read about Lance Nacio here. We can feel great about these domestic, highly well-regulated, and delicious shrimp.
Now, for the update!
Chinook Salmon
This is it. Get on it now. The salmon bite has been wide open everywhere since the opener. DFW told us there were massive numbers of salmon off the coast this year—and for once they were right!!! ;) Drop everything get on a boat now! The best big charter boat for salmon is The Outer Limits out of Sausalito. The Outer Limits is now captained by former deckhand Christian Kavanagh. Tell him I said, “Hi!” Drop everything and sign up now! No kidding this is the moment we've all been waiting for. My other favorite big charter is New Captain Pete out of Half Moon Bay. There's a 5 day commercial salmon opener beginning Sunday, all the people I know will be out for all 5 days, so it's unlikely we'll have any salmon for next week.
Cali Hali
Sea Forager's Jack Luong
The early season halibut bite has been epic. Just make sure if you're going, you look at your tide book and select gentle gradients (not a huge difference between low and high tide). Some newbies out there have been learning the hard way about the wind in SF Bay. Honestly it's no joke. If you're on a kayak way out in the middle of the bay, and the wind picks up, you've got problems. Hug the shore, don't skimp on the radio, and pay attention to the tide and wind. Yada yada... I'm mentioning this because I spoke to someone who almost died out there last week—don't make dumb rookie mistakes. Windy.com is a good place to check on local wind conditions.
(BTW the picture of Jack above is from a couple of years ago... the shore bite for hali has been slow, you really need to get out on the kayak or boat for the good numbers right now).
Striped Bass
Some decent striper action has been happening in the bay. Especially around Coyote Point. Also small just-legal schoolies (honestly, the only ones you really want to eat as far as methyl mercury goes ) have been showing up on the beaches from Pacifica south. (Champion de la Banana—agent 007—reports catching several bass last week on ghost shrimp—while fishing for perch).
Surf Perch
Buddy Jerry sends this pic of his wife Jennifer with a hawg redtail! Good work guys!
The perch bite has been good/great on all the local beaches esp. when high tide coincides with late afternoon... (admittedly none of my perch guys are early birds so as far as early morning tides... who knows?)
I've gotten several nice reports of huge redtails from Bolinas to Bodega. And some huge calicoes and barreds on the beaches in Half Moon Bay. Sand crabs and gulp worms are working well. Champion de la Banana who catches more perch than anyone, uses ghost shrimp exclusively--unless there are soft-shelled sand crabs around--just sayin.
Forage Fish
Above pic by Leighton Kelly (who did all the art in my book). Click here for his catalogue.
Sardines (!)
Glad to report sardines in the bay right now. Mostly these have been little ones--anchovy sized. But sardines nonetheless. My commercial hali crew says they don't last very long as a drift bait but the shore guys love 'em. Not to mention the culinary potential of small sardines (!) Best spots have been all the piers on the north end of the city (Fort Pt, Muni Pier, Ft Mason and The Piers around Fisherman's Wharf). The Sabiki contingent tells me white-feathered minimalist rigs in the day and the gaudy sparkling chartreuse tinted ones in the evening/night. Low tide has been better than high. Here's a little video I shot behind the Sea Forager nerve center at the wharf to show you what you can expect. I shot this yestereday. (Thanks Lee).
One other interesting thing. I noticed that the guys catching the sardines also appeared to be catching a bunch of medium/small herring. Seemed a bit late for herring to still be hanging out in the bay, but closer inspection revealed that the small "herring" I was looking at were a diff type of clupeid! Immature American shad. Not the first time I've seen this, but I've never seen so many in one spot before. Hopefully it portends a big shad year. Can I just say for the record that I would very much like to go shad fishing this year? Seriously. I never seem to time it right... And I always go to the wrong flippin' spot (the reason for this is that I hate combat fishing, so when I see fifty guys elbow to elbow I go to a lovely, uncrowded, scenic location--where there aren't any fish!). Anyone who wants to be my defacto shad guide, taking into account my distaste for combat fishing is welcome to email me at [email protected]. Yes this is a plea.
Jacksmelt. Well... if you don't care about parasitic nematodes there are plenty of jacksmelt around. Heh heh. I saw a guy on pier 14 (near the Klaus Oldenberg bow and arrow) opening a can of wupass on the stinky, scaly silversides last week. So, I'm assuming there are a lot of them around right now--as per usual in April. Top smelt? I have no idea.
There sure are a lot of anchovies in the bay right now—as there seem to be every year now. But most of these are borderline pin-heads (too small for bait or boquerones). I should also point out that I have been finding quite a few night smelt lately, though I will say nothing about how far I've got to drive (and walk) to get to them. It has, nevertheless, been very exciting to see them in good numbers again! As far as their diurnal cousins go. I only have one report. Howe, everyone's favorite E-Z Mart guy, got a few day fish back in early March (!) They evidently got trapped behind a small sand bar in the harbor in HMB. But that does not so much qualify as a "run" as a one in a million lucky day. In any case I've spent many hours staring like a crazy man into the frothy waves hoping beyond hope that my favorite little fish (H. pretiosus) might come back to my local beaches... but signs look bleak... one can dream, no?
Coastal Foraging
Your big minus tides in April are from Monday the 18th to Friday April 22...
May is looking good from Sunday May 15th to Saturday May 21
Poke poling has been great—as per usual. With a lot of cabezon lately for some reason, even though it's April. And clamming is always good on the mega tides--despite massive pressure on the weekends in Princeton Harbor. I'm happy to point out there's a group of volunteers out in the mussel beds instructing people on the more sustainable way to go about gathering stuff (ie: please leave the crow bar at home!)
There's been a fair cop of nori lately. At least on the San Mateo coast two weeks ago. Remember it's usually high up in the intertidal zone.
All of this brings me back to... my new tours! Find your dates and tickets HERE. Makes a great Mother's Day gift, or better yet give her a gift certificate for Sea Forager Seafood! And if you want to get on that charter boat with Adam and I, sign up now.
Ok. That about does it. Hope this finds everyone well. Now get out there and catch a halibut! Or a salmon! Sheesh, we haven't had it this good in years!
Kirk-out