I'm in today's SF Chronicle (Mar. 1st 2012)!!!!!
Click Here: SF Chronicle
Also:
I'm in Field and Stream!
Me, me, me on page 88 (print version only)
I was gonna cut it there... but I figure what the hell. Might as well post the March update from seaforager.com Anyone who wants to school me on how to catch whitebait smelt is welcome to. Anyhoo, have at:
March 2012:
Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig evidently fishing cod in the 1920s
If you will all grant me a baseball analogy: March is like Babe Ruth. Not only does it bat #3 in the line up, it has April (Lou Gehrig) batting #4 behind it.
But really the most notable thing about March is the return of this worthy beast to local waters:
California Halibut
A "worthy beast."
I must take a moment to thank Poseidon for the Cali hali., and really, this is now the premier game fish of SF Bay. And one of only two major commercial fisheries occurring inside the Golden Gate bridge (with all due respect to commercial perch fishermen, mudsucker trappers and bay shrimpers). I get a lot of questions about the advisability of eating bay-caught halibut. The 5-year Health Dept. study that came out in 2011 is the most comprehensive analysis of local fishes ever conducted. Here's what they recommend for children aged 1-17 and women in their child bearing years:
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Safe to eat 
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Safe to eat |
Do not eat |
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For men over 17 years of age and women over 45, two servings of local halibut per week is considered to be okay. {Lombard's Editorial Machine: I should point out that the surf perch data for this study were compromised because they included shiners in it--shiners that were ground up: heads, gills, guts and all. All the other samples in the study were of fillets only. Black surf perch, (aka: 'pogies'), taken without the inclusion of whole shiners, scored even better than halibut as far as mercury and PCBs were concerned. You can check it all out here: OEHHA Health Advisory).
For those of you who are new to halibut fishing, know this: halibut can be caught from shore, from pier or from small boats (kayaks are perfect). Halibut, despite the "bottom feeder" reputation are voracious predators that will hit jigs, lures, swim baits, live baits, dead bait, cut baits or flies. Yes flies! I once caught a halibut on a streamer fly fishing inside one of the water containment ponds at the PG & E power plant at Hunter's Point. (Talk about inner city fishing, that was it!)
My former honey hole. I caught 10 halibut here in 2002
As every fishing website in California will tell you, the best way to go with halibut is live bait. But since the live bait receivers are not going to be up and running till at least April or May, be prepared to familiarize yourself with the art of catching this guy:
Shiner perch (food for halibut, not people. Also: see "topsmelt" below)
To catch shiners, get yourself a Sabiki rig (they sell them at Gus' on 38th and Balboa). Bait the hooks with tiny pieces of shrimp (squid won't work). And fish around any pilings in SF Bay at high tide. (3 hooks maximum inside SF Bay). I don't care what anyone tells you, you will catch more shiners at high tide than any other time. The problem is... this is exactly the same time you want to be fishing for halibut. So you gotta keep your shiners alive!
To keep shiners alive make sure you have one of these air pumps in your bag of tricks:
Celestial Happenstance
The best tide book money can buy. To order go here: Tidelog
I'm sure some of you have looked at your tide books already and determined that this month does not offer you a whole lot by way of mega-minus tides. There are a few -0.2 and -0.1 tides. But on the whole no minus tides worth writing home about.
The Pacific littleneck clam
I beg to differ. Look again. March is remarkable in that there is a poke-polable tide every single day! There may not be any huge horseneck clams or sea urchins (both of which require big tides) in your immediate future but mussels, limpets, cabezon, grass rockfish and monkeyface eels should be pretty much daily occurances. Seriously. Any tide +1.4 and lower is good for eels, rockfish and cabezon. And most local mussel beds can also be reached on those tides. So there's no excuse! And remember, horse-neck clams are not the only clams on the coast. A 0.0 tide is actually perfect for cockles and littlenecks.
Smelt 101
1. the true smelts
Longfin smelt. Kinda similar to a delta smelt aint it?
Delta smelt (the fish of a Ca. water manager's nightmares)
I have been fielding an inordinate amount of e-mails lately concerning the old issue of what constitutes a true smelt. In our area there are a bunch of true smelts. But only 2 of these are commonly fished for: night smelt (S. starski) and surf smelt (H. pretiosus). Formerly, we had abundant stocks of longfin smelt, delta smelt and even eulachon (candlefish) in Northern California but all these have more or less gone the way of the dodo bird.
Whitebait smelt
I heard a strange report this year from a DFG biologist that quite a few whitebait smelt were caught by one of the herring trawl boats used to collect data in SF Bay. But there is no one in our area who actually targets whitebait smelt--not yet anyway!.
Night smelt
The true smelts (or Osmerids) are notable for the fresh cucumber scent they tend to give off. They also have adipose fins (like salmon) and do not need to be scaled the way jacksmelt do. Surf smelt
The true smelts are in the author's humble opine, among the best tasting fish on the California coast. Though the market demand is mostly for night smelt, really, the best of the osmerids is ol' H. pretiosus (the precious smelt), pictured above.
Eulachon, aka: "hooligan," or "candlefish."
2. Silversides (Lombard's "false smelts")
And now for the imposters: Jacksmelt
Ironically, despite all that I've said in the past, I will probably end up fishing this species commercially this summer. The demand for them is increasing greatly. Despite the nasty scales and the worms and the black stuff in their guts. Sometimes you've just gotta give the people what they want!
Jacksmelt, topsmelt and grunion are not smelts at all. They are silversides belonging to the family: Atherinopsidae, (new world silversides). So a jacksmelt is actually more closely related to a flying fish than it is to any of the true smelts.
Jacksmelt are notorious for containing prodigious numbers of worms. These worms are, of course, harmless, but they are rather horrifying (and unappetizing!) to behold. Nevertheless, you will notice in the OEHHA chart at the top of this page, jacksmelt scored in the green area for mercury and other toxins! Anyone who has spent any time at all fishing in the bay will also tell you that these fish are mainly targeted by ethnic groups and nationalities that have very advanced cuisines. There is no doubt in my mind that, despite my own anti-atherinidae prejudices, the old Cantonese ladies on Pier 7, or the Vietnamese anglers at Candlestick Park, etc., turn their teeming buckets of jacksmelt into something quite delicious. No doubt in my mind at all.
Topsmelt
Actually, I've never heard of anyone eating topsmelt--other than halibut. To be perfectly honest they make a better live bait than shiners. That's my opinion on the matter anyway. Strange to me that live bait stores always have shiners but seldom carry topsmelt which are quite easy to catch (throw nets people), and are common from April to October in the bay. I have noticed that topsmelt tend to be found in little backwaters and ponds inside the bay. And also in the channels that lead to those places. So, Brisbane Tubes, Brisbane Lagoon, Burlingame Lagoon, Kincaid's Lagoon, Lake Merritt, many of the channels in Alameda, Bayfarm Island etc., all seem to hold a lot of toppies.
Okay. Hopefully that clears a few things up. I'm not going to get into grunion here. Grunion is a So. Cal thing. However, I will say this... grunion, contrary to popular belief, do in fact spawn inside SF Bay. Hopefully I will get some footage of this at some point this year.
Pacific sand dab
Actually, just got a tip on sand dabs. So I'm heading out the door right now to see if it's true. Keeping fingers crossed on this one. It's been at least 6 years since sand dabs showed up in any kind of abundance inside SFBay. Hopefully I'll have some encouraging sand-dabbery to report for March!
Until next month, see you at, in, or near the water.
--Kirk-out Mar 1, 2012
Kirk, if you can eat pogie sashimi I recon you can create a dish whose centrepiece is the isopods that live on the gills of sand dabs.....
Posted by: Northern Boy | 03/03/2012 at 08:44 AM
Kirk, Thanks for the really interesting information about the various local smelt. Some of these look really similar to commonly eaten fishes in Japan like Wakasagi, or Shishamo. Interestly, I just learned Wakasagi (Hypomesus nipponensis) were once introduced to the Delta and are thought to pose a risk of hybridization with the Delta Smelt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomesus_nipponensis
I wonder what it would take to create a viable local market for fish like smelt? I think our attitudes towards very small fish as table fare will have to change, as well as the way they are handled after caught.
I'll be at Tsukigi fish market in Tokyo this weekend to chat with the fish mongers and take a lot of photos. Let me know if there's anything you would be interested in seeing.
Cheers
PWD
Posted by: Popothewonderdog | 03/05/2012 at 08:39 PM
Thanks for the info on smelts. We have wanted to eat lower on the fishie food chain, and we bought a small bag of night smelts from the Monterrey Bay at the Sunnyvale farmer's market today. I cut off the heads (I'm just not there yet), breaded them in cornmeal and arrowroot starch, and fried them up in ghee. They were very mild, with crunchy outsides and fairly soft interiors. Delicious! Now I want to go catch some myself. :D
Posted by: Sally | 03/24/2012 at 01:33 PM