Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3713 June 9-22 2018 | Page 35

I June 8 - 22, 2018 SALTWATER VOL.37 • ISS. 13 35 San Francisco Bay Grudge Match! I joined James on the California n May, I took part in a very Dawn, while well-known outdoor unique charter boat fishing adventure that pitted angler against writer and Fish Sniffer field editor, angler, boat against boat, skipper Roland Aspiras covered the scene on against skipper and the Happy Hooker. brother against brother! The boats were the The California Dawn Happy Hooker and the After leaving the marina, California Dawn, both James headed to the north by out of the Berkeley to fish the Paradise area. Marina. Captain Chris The best fishing had been Roland Aspiras in the South Bay, but James Smith was the Captain of the Hooker and decided to follow a hunch. & Cal Kellogg Chris on the other hand his younger brother, Captain James Smith was headed directly south, behind the wheel of the banking on a sure thing. California Dawn. I’ve spent thousands of hours on Both James and Chris are the water with James over the past 15 outstanding captains that know years and his hunches generally pay everything there is to know about off, but not this day. fishing S.F. Bay and the coastal waters We had a few bites and picked up beyond the Golden Gate. a few fish up north, but overall the Since James and Chris have similar action was slow and we knew from skill levels and similar size boats, the radio chatter that the anglers the level of rivalry between the two aboard the Hooker were rounding up brothers was running at a high level both halibut and bass. to say the least! After a couple hours on the north The decks of both boats were side, James relented and off to the jammed with members of various South Bay we went to play catch up. Facebook fishing clubs and S.F. Bay The fishing was slow for us in the halibut and stripers were the target. morning, but progressively got better as the day went on. Chris and team Hooker were able to maintain a lead throughout the morning hours, but by lunch time we had a pretty good vibe going on the California Dawn and we were able to narrow the margin significantly. By late afternoon we’d moved out of the South Bay and set up operations on the Berkeley Flats right next to the Hooker. At WHAT’S HOT Joey Gamez Jr. holds up a big beautiful halibut he caught aboard the Happy Hooker during the May Facebook S.F. Bay Faceoff. Photo by ROLAND ASPIRAS, Fish Sniffer Staff. ClearVu, SideVu and CHIRP Sonar. Garmin’s echoMAP 94sv combination GPS/Fishfinder offers a 9” keypad controlled color display with Preloaded Bluechart G2 Charts for the Coastal US. Internal 5Hz GPS Antenna, NMEA2000 Connectivity and Panoptix Compatibility. Call For Details! MARITIME ELECTRONICS 2855 Soquel Ave. Santa Cruz, CA (800)582-1333 3623 Halibut and bass were plentiful during the Facebook Faceoff aboard the Happy Hooker and California Dawn this May. Photo by ROLAND ASPIRAS, Fish Sniffer Staff. this point, several of our anglers had gotten hot. We had several halibut in the box, some schoolie stripers and one monster striper that weighed in at around 25 pounds! I’m happy to report that I was one of the hot sticks on the Cal Dawn. With the breeze pushing hard, I started long lining anchovies off the bow of the boat using a 1 ounce sinker and the bites came fast. During our first drift, I put 4 keeper halibut and a schoolie bass into the box. With fish after fish coming into the Dawn and nary a net flying on the slower drifting Hooker we knew it was just a matter of time before we took the lead for good. But time was against us. The rules called for all fishing to cease at 4:30 pm and that allowed Captain Chris and Team Hooker to hang on for a narrow victory! The Happy Hooker I joined Andy Doudna, Jimmy Athas, Dennis Piedade, Tung Nguyen as Team Addathon on the Happy Hooker with Captain Chris Smith and his son, Jonathan Smith. We started off the morning fishing just south of the Bay Bridge in deep water. The action was steady with bites occurring often, and both keepers and shakers coming over the rail. As the action slowed with the tide, I tossed a lucky white and blue colored swimbait that I used to have luck with on the city shoreline in years past. Boy, was that a bad idea. I ended up tangling a fellow angler, Jimmy Athas. Of course, heckling started, and it was justified. It was a really bad tangle! Fishing picked up again as the incoming tide started, but quickly dropped off again two hours into the tide. Chris had us pack up and we moved to the Berkeley Flats, where we experienced some very choppy conditions, along with a flurry of excellent action. Chris Barfield from West Sacramento, part of the Mulisha- Style Fishing group dropped the hammer, landed a total of 4 keeper halibut. But in general, his entire group laid the social media smackdown on all of the groups on the Happy Hooker. In total, we had over 20 keeper halibut to the boat, along with nine schoolie striped bass - enough to beat out Ja