The season started slower for us in Bodega with a lot of weather and hit or miss fishing, but as of today we are on the 3rd day of constantly wide open action, with all you can get salmon fishing.

Bodega Bay – 6/28/26

Capt Ryan- Bigeye

With some poor weather for the opener, we canceled both boats and decided to take a light load of more seasoned folks on Sunday to get things started in the rough conditions. Despite the challenges, our tough anglers were eager to face the elements and get some fresh kings. We ended up finding some fish near Tomales Bay, where a lot squid activity was happening. After a few hours of patience and persistence, we managed to gather up 4 fish, ranging impressively from 21 inches up to a substantial 31 lbs. Unfortunately, we lost many more big ones due to the crazy weather.

Bodega Bay – 6/29-7/3

Capt Josh- Bigeye

Capt Billy- Sorta Salty

Josh and Billy Flip flopped between boats and ran the mid week trips, the bite was hit or miss as there wasn’t large migration school but just lone wolf packs, so if you were at the right place at the right time you could do well on big fish. There was day with more hot bites and not so hot bites, overall most trips averaged a fish per angler give or take with a few 8 to 10 fish days, the grade remained hit or miss, some monster fish and some little guys all side by side, overall inconstant fishing and a little tough. The fish stayed local, pretty much from the harbor down to bird rock was 90% of the action happened, the weather didn’t allow for much searching outside of that area as it was pretty windy all week.

Bodega Bay – 7/3/26

Capt Ryan- Bigeye

Cap Billy- Sorta Salty

As the weather improved and the fishing did the opposite, I knew it was time to roll the dice and go find a migration school somewhere else offshore. Capt Billy was set to stay local and fish right in front of the harbor, where he had caught some big fish the day before which was my backup plan but with several days of good weather and a busiest holiday weekend of the year approaching I wanted somewhere less busy to fish for the weekend. I set off to the north sitting in the tower driving along and tried a few spots for nothing, eventually I look over my shoulder and a bird tornado and dozens of whales on the horizon, we put in ands picked up 6 nice fish and lost almost as many even with some experienced clients, the fish were there but just not biting well. The bites were soft and careless and the fish all came up with bellies stuffed full of anchovies so they really weren’t super interested in our baits. Overall a good start and we were happy to find some turf with basically no boats in site but some close buddies who had helped us search. Billy grinded it out close to the harbor and found 6 really nice fish up to 25lbs, unfortunately a swarm of boats found him and turned off the bite by the early afternoon, the fishing pressure was crazy by the early afternoon with hundreds of boats going all directions, crossing into the MPAs and just a overall nightmare for us in Bodega who are used to fishing in solitude with only a few buddy boats around. Luckily Billy had the area to himself for most of the morning and did well while he was there.

Bodega Bay – 7/4/26

Capt Ryan- Bigeye

Cap Josh- Sorta Salty

We charged out of the harbor with 4th of July in full swing, I was expecting madness but surprisingly, boat traffic was moderate compared to the day before, we charged north and Capt. Josh wasted no time finding the biters north of where i was the day before that a buddy had located. He had a old friend and ex charters Captain Jeff on board as a deckhand, and they corralled up limits for clients and crew in a hurry, once they got on em I actually only had 3 fish when they were headed home with a full boat. It took us another few minutes, but we found a school that was willing to eat and we got our 16 fish in as well, once we were on them it was doubles, triples and even a quad I think with fish from 12lbs to our biggest at roughly 30lbs. A really nice average grade of probably 15lbs, just tuna style madness, they were not picky at all biting anything you put in the water from bait to spoons and hoochies. We were were all wrapped up by noon as were our fellow other boats who joined us. A few boats heading to find rockfish saw the team of 6 packs working and put in and had a the same results, it was simply wide open fishing and close to zero boat traffic.

Bodega Bay – 7/5/26

Capt Ryan- Bigeye

Cap Billy- Sorta Salty

Again we snuck out thinking we were going to have a nice bite all to ourself, we posted very little of the day before and most rec boaters were working the shallows looking for inshore wolf packs of salmon while we had an entire migration to us and our buddies, well unfortunately a few boats caught wind of the sound end that migration and the boat chasers followed and there was a fleet of hundreds of boat stretched from inside the the MPA closure to the Russian river. We returned to our marks from the pervious day north of the boats to find some solitude and biting fish right away, as soon as some boaters caught wind of us doing circles we were dogpiled and had to back on the hunt so I headed north knowing these fish are northbound and found a patch of life off Russian gultch and we made quick work of limits, I think we had all of our fish by 9:30 or 10am, it was pretty incredible action once we got on them, even better than the day before, I think we put in over 10 fish in a 20 minute window with almost all doubles and triple hookups.

Bodega Bay – 7/6/26

Capt Mike- Bigeye

Cap Billy- Sorta Salty

After a lot of days fishing Josh and I had to catch up on our other jobs, so our new filler captain Mike long (who ran the Miss Vic for many years) took the bigeye out while Billy ran the salty. I haven’t seen photos yet but it sounded like the fish are still on that same northward charge and they found them further up toward fort ross. The bite slowed down a lot today, but they still had limits of nice mid 12-20lb fish by 1pm today so the fishing was still pretty damn good. We have some weather coming in this week, which will hopefully not mess things up but north wind seems to do that around here, those fish are in a hurry to get north and hopefully we will get another wave behind them after the wind clears, or they will turn around at Pt Arena like they did in 2020 and give us a few more weeks of solid action. Either way we will be back to fishing once the weather lets us.