Posted on June 10, 2020

We met up early in Bolinas and there was excitement in the air. This was our first serious salmon trip for 2020 and we saw all the tell-tales giving away salmon presence. Birds were diving over the Duxbury Reef, there were schools of baitfish moving through the water column, and the ocean laid flat. A perfect fishing day!

I was trolling an anchovy behind a dodger and about 30 minutes into the session had a strike. This should have been it, last year I had caught about 10 salmon in this very fashion, but after a short fight the fish vanished. Oh man, this felt like a good one, and usually those circle hooks hold very well.

Soon Matt, a man who never fails to catch a big one, also called out that he was on a salmon, but it was another fight were the salmon was victorious. Those barbless hooks aren't easy, I thought, otherwise there would have been two salmon in their respective boats by now.

Soon after that I hung up my rig on the shallows of the reef and lost the baitholder. Fortunately, Matt gave me one of his so that I could continue trolling. It didn't take all that long, perhaps another hour, before I hooked my second salmon. This time the fight lasted longer and I had the salmon near my boat when it came off the hook. Unbelievable, but also understandable, Matt's rig came with two barbless J-hooks and those are even more difficult than my circle hooks in combination with my 2-foot fishing rod. One sudden burst and the salmon was gone, there was not much I could have done about it.

I was paddling alongside Matt, still trolling, when his rod doubled over. It was obvious, this was a heavy fish. After a good fight with aerial acrobatics, Matt, who was about to make good on his reputation, landed a 36 incher, a 20+ pound salmon. What a way to start the season!

Matt's big catch came close to the end of my trolling session and it looked like I wouldn't find my chrome today.

I paddled over to Koji, who had mooched much of the day and hadn't found his chrome either, and we decided to move on to the halibut grounds. Along the way we came across an enormous school of anchovies. I stopped to jig up a few as live bait for halibut while Koji was dangling his mooching rig in the water column.

Suddenly Koji had a pole-bending hit. This was a heavy fish, another large salmon? After a longer battle the signature tail of this creature emerged and it was clear, he was fighting a Pacific Thresher Shark!

The shark was heading back down and taking line. This wouldn't be easy and Koji was about to break off the fish. I had been there before when I saw Loleta Eric handle a 9-foot thresher shark at Shelter Cove. I persuaded Koji to keep fighting since threshers are great table fare and I brought the tools necessary to kill and secure the shark. Furthermore, this might be our last shot at a good fish on this day (technically speaking it was Koji's last shot, I was just cheerleading to this point).

While Koji was tiring out the shark I continued to jig up anchovies. The school had not moved at all during this commotion but a large specimen of a sea lion had moved in and started to take an interest in the shark. I slapped my paddle hard onto the surface to scare the sea lion away but he was only modestly impressed and kept circling in close distance.

The shark was getting tired. I had prepared my gaff, a heavy duty stringer and a tow rope. We would gaff the thresher, secure the tail and push a stringer through the gills and out the mouth without exposing any fingers in the shark's strike zone. There's definitely some risk since we're in very light boats, everything is moving and the deck of my sea kayak is quite slippery. Fortunately, it worked out almost perfectly. At one point I took a hit to my face by the thresher's tail but then we got hold of it and never let go.

What a beautiful fish! It measured exactly six feet, half body and half of it tail. The colors of the thresher are unbelievable, white with metallic purple. By the time we arrived at Bolinas the colors had faded quite a bit but immediately after the catch it was an astonishing sight.

Back at the beach the shark raised quite a spectacle. Everybody had some opinion on the fish, whether it was legal, which species (salmon shark?), and some objected to cleaning the shark on the beach: "It brings in sharks" they said. Well, the sharks are already here and given the daily carnage in Bolinas Bay between sea lions, sharks, salmon, halibut and other predator fish gutting one more fish hardly makes a difference.

Koji took the thresher home, filleted it, vacuum sealed the various portions, and shared half the bounty with me. What a nice gesture, I'll owe him one for that!

Distance: 13.2 miles
Duration: 7:45 hours