Solid Winter Swing: San Francisco Bay Fishing Report

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 boat, the reefs off Tennessee Valley and Rocky Point remain prime for rockfish and ling when the swell is down.

Fish slow and low in this cold water, and let that tide do the work. The bite today should bump up right after sunrise on the dropping tide, then again late afternoon as that flood builds toward sunset.

Thanks for tuning in, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a Bay report.

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