Fished an East Bay pier on Friday with some friends. We arrived at 7am to some fishy conditions: overcast skies, slight breeze, good tides, and clear water. The action was pretty slow in the morning, but we saw one guy to the left of us catch a keeper halibut as well as a shaker. The guy to the right of us caught a keeper striper. It was about time for us to catch a fish... So to make things more interesting, we started a friendly wager: the first person to catch a legal halibut would collect $5 from the others. Each of us had some missed bites and scratched baits. There were halibut around, but they didn't seem to be very hungry.

Finally at around 2pm towards the bottom of the tide, I saw my rod tip bounce and then hang downward. I ran over and saw my float submerged, so I adjusted the drag, took up the slack, and set the hook on a 24" halibut. It made a few quick runs before we got him in the net. Whoohoo! Twenty bucks for me. I was seriously considering releasing the fish since we still had two halibut in the refrigerator from boat trips over the week, but the darn thing started flopping around like crazy when it hit the deck: scuffing his jaw and bruising his body pretty badly, and also dislodging a lot of his scales. It took me a while to get the hook out and by then he was pretty beat up, so I put him on the stringer. The wind picked up and it was slow again for the next couple of hours, but then came a steady striper bite during the middle of the incoming. We caught quite a few small stripers from 4-6pm. All but one 21 incher was released. We called it a day around 7pm since the water clarity wasn't too great and the wind was howling. Fun day of fishing with good company.

Date: 5/27/11
Tide: Bottom of the Outgoing (Low 1.7) and Middle of the Incoming (High 5.4)
Location: East Bay
Bait: Live Anchovies
Rigs: 3-Way and Slip Float