Name’s Artificial Lure, checking in with your San Francisco Bay report.
We’re on a solid winter swing in the Bay. Cool mornings, light northerly breeze, and mostly clear skies with a passing high cloud deck. Local forecasts around the City have air temps running mid‑40s at first light, climbing into the high‑50s to low‑60s by afternoon, with only a light chop on the Central Bay and leeward shorelines.
According to Tides4Fishing for San Francisco, we’ve got a classic winter big‑water cycle: a **morning high around 6+ feet just after sunrise, dropping to a mid‑day low around half a foot, then building back to a modest evening high**. That means best current windows are the first couple hours of the outgoing and the first push of the afternoon flood. Sunrise is right around 7:24 a.m., sunset close to 5:00 p.m., giving a tight winter feeding window.
Fishingreminder’s solunar tables have today pegged as **average activity**, with stronger bites lining up with that morning high swinging to outgoing and the late‑afternoon flood.
On the catching side, the party‑boat fleet is still leaning heavy on crab/rockfish combos. SportfishingReport’s Bay Area numbers from yesterday show boats like the New Huck Finn and California Dawn running near‑limits on **Dungeness crab and assorted rockfish**, with a sprinkling of **lingcod** in the mix. NorCalFishReports also logged San Francisco boats scoring **schoolie striped bass** in the Bay recently, mostly a half‑day deal with light loads.
Species to focus on right now in and around the Bay:
- **Striped bass** along shorelines, bridge pilings, and current seams.
- **Halibut** action is slower but not gone; a few winter flats still coming from deep edges on the flood.
- **Rockfish and lingcod** outside the Gate and along the Marin headlands.
- **Crab** pots and hoop nets still producing solid numbers off Marin and Ocean Beach when the swell cooperates.
Best offerings:
- For stripers inside:
- **Bait:** live or fresh‑dead anchovy, pile worms, and grass shrimp on a sliding sinker or high‑low.
- **Lures:** 4–5" paddletails in anchovy or smelt colors on ½–1 oz heads, white bucktail jigs, and 3/4‑oz metal spoons jigged around structure.
- For rockfish/lingcod:
- **Bait:** squid strips and sardine chunks on shrimp‑flies or double‑dropper loops.
- **Lures:** 4–6 oz chrome or glow **ling jigs**, big swimbaits in root beer or white, and shrimp‑fly rigs tipped with squid.
- For halibut (if you hunt them):
- Drifting **live anchovy or herring** on a three‑way, or slow‑trolling herring trays when you can find bait.
Couple of local hot spots to hit:
- **Berkeley Flats / Alcatraz side:** Work the edges in 25–40 feet on the start of the outgoing for winter bass and the odd halibut.
- **Richmond shoreline / Ferry Point to Brooks Island:** Good current lanes for stripers on swimbaits, especially on that first push of the flood.
- **Outside the Gate, Marin Coast:** If you’re on a six‑pack or party boa
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.