Autumn's Bite: Lively Fishing Action in San Francisco Bay

This is Artificial Lure with your latest San Francisco Bay fishing report for Friday, October 3, 2025.

The Bay wakes today under clear fall skies, with that autumn crispness finally creeping in. Expect a mild morning with patchy fog burning off before noon and a high near 68. Winds will be light early, but expect that classic afternoon westerly to kick up, especially out near the Gate. Sunrise hit at 7:07AM and sunset rolls in around 6:49PM, so there’s a good, full day of angling ahead.

The tides are working in our favor: low at 3:08AM, high at 10:14AM (nearly 5 feet), another low at 3:27PM, and a robust high at 9:23PM pushing 5.6 feet according to Tide-Forecast.com. Best fishing windows will bracket those high tides—early bites and then again late afternoon into evening, especially for those running boats offshore or working shoreline structure.

The season’s cooling trend has triggered the fall bite. Party boat scores from Nor Cal Fish Reports say it all: yesterday out of Emeryville, the New Huck Finn saw 24 lingcod and 120 rockfish for just 12 anglers, and the Oakland Anglers II scored 10 halibut and 16 solid striped bass in a half-day run. That’s as good as it gets for late-season action.

Nearshore, the persistent rockfish and lingcod schools are stacked up across the Marin coast and at the Farallon Islands. If targeting lingcod, big paddle tail swimbaits in glow or blue, or old-school iron jigs like the Ahi Live Deception, are money right now. Brown and orange twin-tail grubs are also working on the rocky patches. Rockfish will hit cut anchovy or squid strips, but Gulp! jerk shads have been hot and let you stay legal around bait restrictions.

Inside the Bay, the halibut bite has been surprisingly solid for October, especially off the Berkeley Flats, Alcatraz, and the oyster beds near Treasure Island. Trolling or drifting herring, anchovy, or even a well-rigged sardine fillet behind a sliding sinker rig will get you a shot, especially bracketed around high tide slack. For stripers, live mudsuckers are a top producer, but plugging with 5-inch white or chartreuse swimbaits or hair-raiser jigs will get attention, especially working the Oakland rocks and the mouth of the Alameda estuary.

Word from the Eastern Sierra Fish Reports: the white sturgeon sport season is now open in the Bay for catch-and-release through June. Early in the opener a few sturgeon have already been reported hooked on eel or ghost shrimp, especially along the channel edges near the Carquinez Bridge and by the China Camp area. Make sure to grab that no-fee sturgeon report card for the season.

Hot spots for this weekend:
- The Marin Coast and the Farallon Islands if you’ve got a boat—rockfish and lingcod galore.
- Berkeley Flats for halibut and stripers with the tide movement.
- The piers at Fort Point and Fort Mason—always potential for a quality striper run on the evening outgoing.

Remember, keep an eye on those tides and play the moving water. Fish activity really lights up just before and just after the high or low slack. Be safe on the water, respect the wind line, and clean your gear to help stop the spread of invasive species.

That’s it for today’s Bay Area fishing report. Thanks for tuning in—don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss the next bite. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI