The halibut fishery is starting to come around. The scores are not like years past but the chances of you taking halibut home to eat are pretty good.
? This week we started the day after Mother’s Day.
Monday:? I commercial fished SOLO and managed to get 6 halibut to the boat. The grade of fish was superb. With fish to 16 pounds and most others in the 10-12 pound range. Alameda Rock wall was the ticket and 20-22 foot of water seemed to have halibut in it.
Tuesday: Another commercial day that didn’t pan out so well. I wound up fishing other locations due to the lack of action at Alameda Rock Wall. I got called by a fellow angler to San Bruno Shoals. We put in 2 butts before the wind came up. It was hard fishing but gave me a great starting point for my Wednesday Charter trip.
Wednesday:? This fine day would start with a bang.? The charter specified NO Deck Hand. This is a major challenge normally. Imagine having to play basketball with a new team and you’re the only one who knows the rules.? These guys had enough fish savvy to get the job done. We only lost 2 of our 8 hook-ups. And as you can see we hooked up some pretty good fish.
? The day started at the end of the Alameda Air strip with lots of bait in 17 foot and a slowing flood, we boxed a 12 pound halibut for my 3 tack effort.
We then ran up to San Bruno shoals for a small time slug fest with another Six Pac boat and a few commercial guys. I love this, Confident, proud and producing. That’s what we do!
See you next good tide set. Until then we are back to work and fishing Wed, Thurs and Fridays again.

We weren’t expecting much. Even though some reports are boasting “FISH” , the scores of 2-3 fish don’t really give you a great feeling for a mass of fish in any one location. Traditional spots get pressure regardless of their fish holding nature. Nobody can really pinpoint a great bite unless you actually go out and look.
We have been fishing. Normally, we get out and find some fish in their normal locations. This year has been tough.
One of the most consistent boats that I see is Lovely Martha. Michael has been getting out often and seems to be making the best of it. His reports are easy to find and he seems like a real stand-up guy. He tells you like it is.
Monday I ran out of Richmond. I heard Michael’s score from a few of his groupies. I saw him over at South Hampton. Before I could get my gear out he was calling to say Hi. It seems as though over the weekend the bite was good at South Hampton. How Good? Scores of fish around and even some double digits from full boats.
Right now Michael’s is trolling. Definitely a solid tactic considering the price of shiners at the only gig in town or spend the time catching your own bait.
We managed to hook 2 -10 pounds on the SHS both 10 pounds on the last of the flood. We then ran over to Paradise for one more 10pounder. We finished the day with 3 butts.
Tuesday we took the same pattern and started at SHS for another 10 pound fish and got over to Paradise before the start of the ebb. We worked pretty hard for 6 more butts. We ran out of current, looked in the Berkeley flats and found some dirty water so we went home.
Wednesday I had to go sell fish so, I made it out late, giving SHS 2 solid tacks. Nothing! Over to P-dice. We trolled around for a solid 2 hours checking bait as often as possible without boring my new Deck Hand. A 20pounder hit the deck! Then 30 minutes later a 4 pounder and that was it for us we left a small fleet of commercial guys at paradise with some dirty water and a great memory for my next door neighbor.

You guys looking for an advantage: Best advice I can give is keep going until you stumble on something. My large dodgers in green (Seps) combined with smaller baits have done equally well. ?

The talk:
Seems like everybody wants some butts to bite?
?I have been halibut fishing(Exploratory)Trips and the fish just aren’t there as of 4/20/12. I have beenseeing some reports. Oyster point says there getting a few fish. That’s where Igot my only fish.? So far this season!
? I hope I’m wrong butthe local halibut fishery has taken a pounding and may never recover.
Recent salmon fishing closers and total mismanagement ofwater stocks ?has ?taken a toll on our fishery. While halibut werea stable stock in 2008, The numbers of anglers chasing them doubled and local fish,resident fish, the ones that are here year-round were wiped out.? Here we are 2012. The Bay is clean water temperaturesfine there’s plenty of bait around and the halibut are no were to be found.PLEASE SOON!
HALIBUT:
I have been trolling for them with large bay herring.? On a strait bait rig. NO DODGER.? As this was my most effective rig lastyear.? Next time I’ll put the dodgers onand we will see. ?I hope some halibutshow up. …..For my customer’s sake.
SALMON:
?I can do it! With 18mile runs to the fish, weather is definitely an issue.? Most guys are chasing small krill fed fish, with a big fish here and there to 15 poundsand few fish at Duxbury.
STURGEON:
Off the HOOK!!!.
I live in Benicia. Ca. the fish are both up and down river.San Pablo has fish but at any minute you could be overcome by crabs. Leavingyou bait less. . “Good way to shine your hooks”
Upriver the Mothball fleet and beyond is holding a few slugsturgeon.? On Fri. 4/20 I had a Crew fromBrentwood Ca. ?that caught an 80 inchoversize fish? a 61 incher and a fewshakers.? Not a bad day.??????
On 4/21 I had a returning customer. Chris day and grandson,they managed 3 keeper sturgeons of 65inches, 57 inches and 56 inches.
The sturgeons were you find them. I personally have a route.I look at ozol on the way out, then Buoy 2, Horse-shoe, R&R and The Creek. It may take 2 hrs.’ to findsturgeon… but I like sitting on fish .? “Blind squirrels eventually starve to death.”
Synopsis:
Get ready salmon or
Add another sturgeon to your punch card. I’m ready!

I finally got a few days to look for some halibut. Don’t get all excited……
The fishing was excellent but the catching was slow.? In 2 days fishing and roughly 14 hours of boat time we caught 1- 12 pound halibut. So what does this mean for you? ? If you have a boat Go look!If you are waiting to get a trip on the BARBARIAN, Keep your head up. Well find something before long. Maybe end of the month (March2012)

Halibut Fever!
?I got it!
Well the transition back to work has gone ok. I’m back on my normal work schedule.? WEEKENDS are out for the time being. WENDSDAY, THURSDAY AND FRIDAY ARE THE ONLY DAYS I FISH. ?Sorry!
? ?I’m predicting an early halibut season this year. With the lack of rain and lots of clean San Francisco bay water, the chances are great that we may be successful before mid-March. ?The herring spawn was good the shrimpers are catching the occasional halibut in San Pablo Bay and Outside (The OCEAN) the drag boats are scraping up anything that’s coming in the bay.? That sounds like bad news, but with all of this halibut activity I think it’s my turn. ?I’m going!
Really predictions don’t mean much. What matters is we get out a little early and give it a shot. You can’t find them if you aren’t out there.?
?I put a few trips on the adventure list. If you are interested call me with your 2-5 man crew and we will make something happen. ?

Every Trip Is Different: This week I challenged a few new customers.? On New Year’s Eve, Dave chartered the boat for 3 passengers and had limits for his crew(3 sturgeon)and (1 for the crew). Yesterday 2/4/2012 Dave put together another crew. This crew also included his wife, father and friend of the family. ? Dave’s wife, Crystal, put the whoop’ in on a 61 inch fish at the end of the day. The sturgeon fishing was very tough. The Local fish have been pounded by the derbies and boat traffic. The fleet has been concentrating in some deeper water just East of the Bridge and around Buoy 2. There were allot of boats on Friday, the day before the derby, most just stayed there all day, hoping to get lucky on one of the few fish passing by.? I took a chance and actually looked for some fish. Squatting and rotting isn’t my style. We found another small group of fish at Roe and Ryer Isl. This group went through pretty fast, as the current started to flow on the ebb tide. ?We hooked a few shakers. Seeing that the current was going to get faster, we looked in some shallow water and worked our way back to the Benicia Bridge, stopping in deeper water and waiting for the current to slow.? The patience of the crew and the hard work from the Deck hand, ZAK, took a day that didn’t seem very fishy in to a challenging battle of wit and patience. Please take the time to read the prior post . Our rates are going up.

My Hip has healed fine. Now I’m nursing a prostate problem, I hope, goes away soon. I have been on disability for 2-1/2 months. Right now I’m ?getting back to the job that pays the bills at Genentech.? So stressful!? Anyhow , The sturgeon fishing should only get better with the rain this week.??To be quite honest, I’m kind of tired of sturgeon . We caught allot this fall and winter. If you have eaten all of your sturgeon and need another, I’ll get you out there for another go round. ? My major focus for the next couple of weeks will be stacking the freezer with fresh caught herring for bait. Catching and bagging herring will save on the bait bill?, herring is close to $300 a case. Catching it ourselves saves allot of cash. ?I want to get a jump on the Butts. As usual, Ill be the one to get it rolling. As soon as I can get 5-6 halibut in a day I’ll open it up to my customers. I’m hoping for a great Halibut season. Say your prayers and show up when its time. We will get a few. ? All I can say is, be patient, eat up what ya got and stay in touch.
? Its a tough time for me right now, I have been off work so long and its tough to get anything other then my normal days off. I don’t think we will make the Mcavoy’s sturgeon derby this year. My normal days off are Wednesday Thursday and Friday
? I am looking for 2-5 guys to sturgeon fish. My rates will be going up?soon. Currently sturgeon fishing rates are as follows. $150 pp for 2 passengers. If you can manage to get 3-5 passengers the rate is $125 per person. Even at that price people still want to negotiate a price. ?That is the cheapest in the bay for a small boat charter.
??2 passenger charter will increase to $180pp and 3-5 man charter will be $150 pp. As most regular passengers know I don’t do open loads! Grab a friend or 2 and get on the boat. ? Coming Soon: The calender will be updated as soon as the 2012 tide/calender book is available. The Tide book Co. was sold and another company picked it up. We have been ?anxiously waiting for the new BOOK. Its our entire business in one package. Without it we are using 3 tools instead of 1.
I look forward to seeing all the regular fisherman and especially look forward to getting some new groups. In 12 years of Charter boat fishing I have met allot of folks and had allot of great trips. I think of every passenger as part of my family. I love fishing but even more-so I love seeing you get your ?fish of a lifetime.
Capt John, BARBARIAN Sportfishing 510-750-4237?

Gus is pointing at his 2 fish as the others look . This has been an incredible summer.? The weather was challenging and the fishing was GOOD. We spent all of the summer outside on the North Bar AKA Potato Patch and the South Bar AKA Seal Rocks and further out to 3 mile line.? Fishing was good enough to keep the business rolling. Consistent scores of 5-15 halibut were common and the price for the halibut was equally satisfying.? 18 pounds of reel man meat? ? Commercial fishing for halibut has really been a GOD send for us. My devoted customers seem to always show up but finding new customers this year was tough. ??Most are blaming it on the economy.? I can understand that. In times like these it may be better to fill the gas tank in your car then come down to the Bay area and fish.Tough day but we got it done. Bonita Cove has been renamed Dave’s spot. He has caught a 20 pound fish everytime he’s been there 3-4 times. ? I have been real reluctant to raise my rates just for that reason.? I want to see people on fish.? I want them to see, feel and understand the fishery.? That being said I have to thank the regular customers from the bottom of my heart for coming down and enjoying a day fishing with me and my crew on the BARBARIAN. ?It may seem a little premature for season ending gratuity but on October 3^rd I go in for Hip Replacement Surgery. The intention is to be back in the boat and running when the sturgeon fishing starts to peak in late January or February in 2012.??YES WE WILL BE BACK!! You wack’em Petey will stackem.? Paradise, The legendary Bill Pickle The last 2 weeks we did fair on the butts, providing no less than a halibut per customer.. We worked hard for our fish.? Aggressively, trolling the ledges of Paradise and getting folks out on the ocean. Mostly seal rocks/Ocean Beach.? ?
Luckiest man alive . The?first ?of 2 great fish. GUS Rocks!?
For some reason the swell on the ocean has made it hard to really get?something going. The fish are there and biting hard if the 5-15 foot swells lay down. Recently, the last 2 trips we took the chance and fished those outside areas. The rewards were some bigger halibut.? Most who fish with me know I want big fish. I’ll settle for smaller if they are plentiful but a nice 10-20 pound halibut is thrilling to catch and so pretty on the BBQ.Until Next year my friends,? Sincerely, Captain John Badger owner /operator/fish killing machine
Got to love the Matress-man. We needed that fish!Guitar fish from Hunters point.? we threw it back because we couldnt figure out a way to clean it.

Well I had a chance to get some rest this week. Wednesday was my day to relax. After a dropping josh off to get his wisdom teeth pulled, I was free to work on the boat and get ready for a commercial day and a salmon fishing trip with Moklumne river hatchery guys.Thursday was an awesome day; I had a guy who has been bugging me to fish commercially for close to 3 months.? His name is Sean a 30 something with a need to be a commercial fisherman.? He’s a financial advisor in the city but had allot of counter time at the Western outdoor shop in San Rafael.? He was pretty persistent in getting the time I promised him. I think he was as surprised ,as I was, when things actually lined up and he was going to get his day with self- made legend John Badger.? ?? Sean showed up with glow in the dark sunblock on his cheeks and lunch. Small in stature, but he had a commanding, yet sincere voice. I had no idea what to expect. ?Josh and sneaky were there and we welcomed him with the normal sarcasm. ? As the day progressed we had grown a fond respect for Sean. Both Josh and Pete said they like him allot and would fish with him again.Thanks Sean for coming out and as you can see from Josh and Pete you are welcome anytime. Maybe a payday is in your future or better yet some more adventurous extremely long days in the fish slop with a few pigs hanging on the line. Thursday’s fishing was epic and of course my cell phone was dead. So I didn’t get any pix. We started the day trolling up the North Bar all the way to the end of it. Flipping it around when we started seeing salmon boats. ?Our trolling gear made it down to about 55 foot before we couldn’t hold bottom. ?At that point I back-tracked and headed ½ ways down the bar before I pulled the plug on the North Bar. At about 11am I ran over to the South Bar. ??We spent the rest of our day in front of the Cliff House in San Francisco also known as the South Bar. ?The tide started and we immediately started hooking fish the first fish was a 10 pound salmon. We fished the rest of the day putting only 5 halibut in the box 5 halibut weighed 67 pounds that’s a 13 pound average and a $400 day not bad. ? The big story about Thursday was the salmon we boated, a ton of salmon, to the point the salmon were a nuisance. ?

Bill’sThresher shark
?
My Friday’s trip began with grand stories of so many salmon we couldn’t keep them off, as we fished for halibut.? My hatchery guys were pumped. We arrived to some snappy water, just enough to make my guys sick. ?Unfortunately salmon have tails and virtually disappeared. We hooked 2 salmon there in the AM. One was about 15 pounds and the other was an 8 pounder. We got tired of waiting for something to happen and the water was bumpy enough to entertain a change so we ventured out to the sketchy tide bite on the South Side of the Channel Markers. Bill hooked Thresher shark. That fish took a while to get as we circled it enough to make it to dizzy to swim and finally scooped it at the boat. All the boats were sticking around the channel markers and catching a few fish but nothing fantastic. The tide changed and we went back down to the South bar bite. We fished it for a few hours and took off down to Mussel Rock for some smaller but more active fish. We boxed 3 more and called it a day finishing with 2 larger fish and a few smaller ones for 5 salmon. I’m exhausted and back at work dreaming about next week and hoping it will be another fantastic weekend.
?

Luckyiest guy everytime. thats good living my friends
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Inserto and friends 8/10/11 halibut from the South Bar
? Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m superman and all I have to do is get my lines in the water and the fish are going to fly in the boat. ?? This weekend was one of those humbling situations. It wasn’t so bad. We managed to get the fish we needed to make some happy. The market wasn’t to happy because we caught mostly small halibut. 22 inches to 26” , fishing on the North Bar in real sloppy water. . We caught 8 halibut. for app. 40 pounds of fish.? I didn’t even bring them to the market. I filleted them and stuffed them in my freezer for a few dinners in weeks to come. ?? On Thursday I had some customers I haven’t seen in 5 years. They found out I was still fishing and off we went. ?We spent our day salmon fishing. ? We started at Duxbury trolling from Rocky point to DR buoy. We had numerous takes and scraped baits. We hooked 2 fish putting one in the box.? At 230pm I noticed everybody was gone. I made some calls and one buddy (Shim) came back and told me they were at the Channel buoys. I ran out there and in less then ½ hour we were on salmon catching 4 more keepers before the tide died. The bird life and fish out there was far better then the life at Duxbury. I wish we had a few more hours out there. . ? Our success was still one most would be proud of. But my standards are a little bit higher then that. ? I’m definitely not going to fret . We have more days coming up to box more fish and make our customers proud. ? Until Next time, good luck and be safe, it’s only fishing. Live to tell the story!