California Halibut Fishing On San Francisco Bay

We launched the F/V SturgeUrge from Richmond into a bit more Southerly wind than forecast about 9AM.

We turned the corner and headed south towards Southampton. It didn't take long for the lump to get to us. SturgeUrge was really working hard to make way, so we turned tail and headed towards Red Rock.

For some reason...maybe the week's worth of hot days and nights' toll on my sleep schedule...made everything seem like pulling teeth today...

The first three sets of our Dodger/Hoochie/Frozen Herring rigs totally got gongered and came back looking like macrame plant hangers. My apologies to the SturgeUrge as my 'Cranky Pants' must have been 'riding-up' cause I was whining in stereophonic Wall-Of-Sound-style.

You know what they say: "Three's A Charm"... after the third untangle/rebuild/redeploy, *Bang* FishOn!

I felt the head shakes and pumped her up a little fast...then she saw the boat and turned tail and ran...fast! For a minute I was almost convinced I'd hung a Mud Marlin, but the fight was up and down only, no crazy bat ray antics. A couple more ups and downs and SturgeUrge did a perfect net job!

Before the net even came over the rail that fish went ballistic! Think rolling surgeon next to the boat! There went a brand spankin' new $8 sinker! The fish wrapped itself up in the net like a mummy!

That was it for the day. Fish came about 2/3 of the way towards Red Rock on a line from Paradise Pier to Red Rock, just west of the channel...about an hour before the bottom of the small ebb.

We trolled the mark for a couple more hours before switching to drifting to give SturgeUrge a break and to make lunch...I was afraid the top slice of Jewish Rye might blow off the pastrami sammiches I was building.

We haven't had a drift halibut all year, but trolling has been golden so far...we've been sticking to halibut tides exclusively.

Maintain

All this fishing is taking a toll on my tackle.

I stopped by the SturgeUrge Compound Saturday afternoon on my way home from a morning of errands. I had to pick up the GPS Chartplotter antenna for modifications and my rod and reel so I could re-spool the topshot of monofiliment.

My little AVET SX reel has a couple hundred yards of 30lb Power Pro spectra line on it and I run 60 yards or so of Red Cast Cajun 17lb line on top of it.

I didn't chose the Red Cast by color, it was the only 17lb line in the sporting goods store the day I needed it. I've come to love the stuff. When you're trolling three lines off a street-legal boat (no wider than 8ft-6inches), tangles become a problem...especially if one guy is running a plug when everybody else is running spinners...make a turn and you're not fishing anymore, you're knitting!

With the Red Cajun line, it's much easier to un-plait the resultant macrame mess!

So I stripped off the old Cajun line and I'll tie up a new topshot in the morning. An Improved Albright knot and a couple applications of PlioBond glue to fair the knot and I'll be good to go by Wednesday when weather permitting, we'll splash the F/V SturgeUrge into The Sacramento River near Rio Vista again.

The economics are impossible to ignore...at current market rates for Wild King Salmon - $22.99/lb at the Walnut Creek Lunardi's Market, bringing home just 3lbs of salmon pays for the trip! That's gas for the boat and tow vehicle, bridge toll, lunch and launch fees...

Did I mention that these fish are mostly bright chrome ocean-fresh fish or males just starting to turn red...think pastel pinkish?

The fish are right there...though I'm beginning to see Dungeness Crab Season on the distant horizon...

Upon closer inspection, Ocean Salmon and Dungeness Crab seasons overlap for eight days...very interesting...if halibut are late hanging around...with any luck...it could be a Captain's Plate kinda day...or days...

Tired

One long, long day today...I woke up at 4AM, and couldn't get back to sleep. The alarm was set for 5AM, and I was in the guest bedroom at the SturgeUrge Compound.

We were getting up at 0-Dark 30 because we scrubbed Thursday's trip at the last minute due to forecast winds and possible thunder and lightning. Early bird catches the worm and all aside, we wanted to hit "The Golden Hour" to troll California City for migrating King Salmon.

Why not fish the afternoon tide you ask? Because the winds really start cranking on San Francisco Bay in the afternoon. The windiest stretch of water is the last half mile, in the Richmond Harbor Channel, where we are making way abeam of the winds. It's wide open, and protected by a seawall, but it's shallow, so the groundswell is awful. Most afternoons we see a passel of  windsurfers and kite boarders in there. If we're gonna get wet on the Bay, it's usually just before we sight the launch ramp in Richmond's marina!

So we went early, and got off the water just as the Giants lost to the Dodgers...3:30ish... The forecast wasn't spot on. The wind speed was in the ballpark, but the direction was 180° off!

On the water, with baits in the water two hours before we usually start, was an excellent start! We couldn't believe how "civil" conditions were. We trolled up and down the Tiburon coastline until noon...without so much as a nibble. By the time we trolled down Raccoon Straights and around Stuart Point to drift Angel Island for halibut, Cal City has amassed a small armada of like-minded sportsmen. A couple of dozen boats at the peak...and that doesn't count the sailboat regatta that we navigated through on or way back to Cal City!

We're starting to take this personal, this was our third Cal City Salmon try, and Plan B, drifting for halibut has been humbling this year as well. There is a bright side however...we actually saw a net fly! The Six-Pack Boat, Sundancer caught a salmon around 12:30 while we were having lunch while mooching for salmon back at Cal City...so, we know it can be done!

We learned one thing...early on the Bay...more places to play!

Good night, Formula One's Italian Grand Prix at Monza starts at 0430 Forza!

Good Day

Well, SturgeUrge and I spent the afternoon on San Francisco Bay. The NWS missed the wind forecast a little, but not enough to matter in the Grand Scheme of Things.

We definitely punched in on Banker's Hours! Because of the salmon fishery we were targeting, our best shot at them wouldn't come until 3PM, two hours before High Tide. Traditionally you fish two hours before and two hours after the top of the tide and hope the fish come through. It's an interception fishery, and picking the right time to be in the right place isn't easy!

At least it's scenic! We didn't bother to depart the SturgeUrge Compound 'till 10AM! We missed the tail end of rush hour, and were drifting frozen anchovies for halibut by 11AM.

We're convinced now that the halibut have scarcely entered the San Francisco Bay system this year. Most of the creditable halibut catch reports have been from outside the Golden Gate. Some halibut are being taken from Tomales Bay, but that's a long trip when Dungeness Crab season is closed!

The halibut have been taken on the Marin Beaches, off San Francisco's Ocean Beach, off Santa Cruz and in Monterey Bay proper. In the Bay they've barely made it past Angel Island.

We threw in the halibut towel early, and mooched the Tiburon shoreline for salmon for an hour or two before deploying the downriggers and trolling for salmon in earnest.

Mooching was just a time-filler...a low kinetics pastime while we made lunch. I packed the usual lunch (after trying my failed solar BLT experiment on our last trip) Today's fare was honey ham and swiss on a Kaiser roll...dressed with red onion, and incredible heirloom tomato named Pineapple and sliced thick. Mayo, dijon and leaf lettuce.

Unfortunately, the sandwich was the highlight of the day.

We trolled until after 5:30PM and had the worst wind in the last mile back to the Richmond Marina boat ramp.

We had hoped to watch some America's Cup World Series racing, but the course was too far towards the Golden Gate for the F/V SturgeUrge.

I watched the replay of the racing after the Giants beat the Atlanta Braves. There was a huge spectator fleet watching the AC45s on the opposite side of Angel Island from where we were fishing. The announcers said the wind was 22 knots and the tidal current was another 2 knots. High overcast made for "flat light" too. All in all, a recipe for discomfort or worse in a 17ft outboard motorboat.

The America's Cup 45ft catamarans are blisteringly fast. The accelerate like a dragster (at least for a wind powered craft) These boats are light years away from the stately 12 Meter sloops that contested the Cup back in the 70s and 80s over the course of a couple of hours per match race.

Today's AC45s are like STAR WAS spacecraft compared to the 12 Meter boats. Scary fast, and racing on a tight course.

After this week's World Series wraps up, the teams will start putting their new 72ft catamarans through their paces on the Bay. They say the AC72s will make 46 knots!

That's 53 MPH in Old Money...talk about breath taking! Wow!

Heads Up! No salmon or halibut were harmed in the production of today's blog.

It's In the Air

When I crested the hill above Blue Canyon Monday, I could see the pall of smoke from the Chips Fire hanging to the North.

While not really watching "Mornings on 2" KTVU2's 7-9AM news, I caught a teaser citing this fire season as "the worst fire season since 2006" This evening I went to KTVU's site and found the story.

There's still a third of Fire Season ahead of us. Lightning strikes continue to bedevil fire crews up and down California, as well as the rest of the West. "While the number of fires is down from the 10-year average of 54,209 as of Aug. 22, the acreage was well above the average of 5.4 million acres, said Don Smurthwaite, a NIFC spokesman. "NIFC is the National Interagency Fire Center.

"Let's be careful out there" only goes so far...tonight I was enjoying the San Francisco Giants game on TV. They were playing the arch rival Los Angeles Dodgers in LA. You could see huge thunderheads growing east of the San Gabriels...just the kind that start lightning fires...

All this dry winter/bad fire season stuff reminded me to check on the ENSO discussion. Last month the Climate Prediction Center was saying an El Niño-style winter was likely...this month they say it's even money either way. I thought the El Niño call was a little premature because the Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies were way west...Mid-Pacific, not off coastal South/Central America. We'll see, most of the other temp cycles are still on their cold sides.

Oh yeah...the Giants swept the Dodgers...at their house! True, the Dodgers did it to us at our house last month...but we're Number One (for now)! We lead the NL West by 2 1/2 games.

Good night...SturgeUrge and I are gonna be on San Francisco Bay Thursday...Salmon and halibut are the quarry...America's Cup Racing is the distraction!

No Rest For the Wicked

Not really a topical title, but it's all I've got this morning with a "Tired" nod to it. After a long hot day on San Francisco Bay, I couldn't forestall sleep long enough to pen my daily screed before sleep took me in it's heavenly embrace.

Halibut fishing stunk Wednesday...we had one raked bait with the telltale halibut teethmarks...

Spending the day boating on San Francisco Bay was awesome! We launched the F/V SturgeUrge from Richmond into calm winds and warm temperatures. Surprisingly, the only fog to be seen was south along the Golden Gate Bridge/Bay Bridge/Berkeley Pier corridor.

The forecast was for increasing winds as the Big Valley was forecast to endure the "hottest day of the year" Aside from the record tout, this is the standard forecast from May to October for San Francisco Bay, and it's a good halibut forecast in that the afternoon winds facilitate the last drift of the day, back to Richmond from the central Bay.

This week features the "best halibut tides of the year" as long as we're speaking in superlatives...a long incoming tide in the morning, in line with the prevailing winds, and a barely there afternoon tide swing. Halibut are ambush hunters, so-called "sight feeders", so small tide swings favor halibut by not stirring up the silt and lowering underwater visibility.

All of the halibut "conventional wisdom" goes out the window when the wind don't blow, and that was our problem Wednesday...we even trolled in an attempt to put our baits in front of a willing flatty or two...no such luck...and SturgeUrge is just "against trolling" in his DNA.

This has been a tough halibut season to figure out. There's been precious little in the way of halibut catch reports posted to my online fishing club. The scarce reports did begin on time, mid-March but these were all "skunk reports", that is all the details, but zero halibut taken. This too is par for the course for the early season.

Halibut season usually "turns on" mid-May, but the halibut reports didn't come. I attributed this dearth to the hot salmon bite since the salmon opener in mid-April. Since then, the salmon fishing has been limit-style fishing daily, with the size of the fish going up weekly. Conclusion? Halibut fishing is enjoying "lowered effort" in Fish and Game parlance...translated into plain English, nobody's halibut fishing because salmon fishing is as good as it's been in a decade!

The F/V SturgeUrge is a high-sided, deep-vee aluminum skiff of 17ft...at the bottom rung of Golden Gate Seaworthiness, discretion being the better part of honor, we've been unable to get out after the king salmon bonanza. SturgeUrge's boat is Pacific Ocean ready, but not through the Golden Gate. Bodega Bay, Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay or Monterey launches all suit the boat, but these are long tows and the weather has been an issue for Bodega Bay.

We've been trying to get a Bodega Bay/Tomales Bay salmon/halibut/dungeness crab trip in since early June. It's been frustrating, the place didn't get the nickname "Blowdega" for nothing. Stiff NW winds and big swell have defined Bodega's waters for six weeks plus. Compounding our frustration, the only two day period when the winds laid down was the NASCAR weekend at Sears Point Raceway, which put a world-class traffic jam exactly in the middle of the Bodega tow that would catch us coming and going, adding an hour each way to our travel time.

SturgeUrge and I had plenty of time to muse about the halibut situation while said halibut weren't lighting up the festivities...we rehashed all the data, the fishing effort redirected to offshore pursuits, and how for three years running the tables were turned so halibut were hunted mercilessly when salmon seasons were closed to all angling. We averaged one halibut a trip one of those seasons ourselves!

There's one data point that sticks out for me...there have been reports of halibut catches outside of the Bay, usually a post salmon limit catch, by anglers trying to extend their day a little after "early limits". I wondered if this year's weak winter and snowpack have sent too little sweet water out of the Golden Gate to call in the halibut. I may have something there...or it could be that so far we've yet to have a perfect drift...where winds and tides combine to make a perfectly lifelike presentation to the wary halibut.

As SturgeUrge and I sped east across the Bay to set up for the last long drift over Southampton Shoal, we caught a glimpse of a harbor porpoise, only the second or third time we've seen the resurging  little marine mammal. The harbor porpoise's return to the Bay is further proof that the Bay cleanup is paying dividends.

Sweatin' to The Oldies

Nope, not exercise! Pappa don't preach...and you won't find Richard Simmons anywhere near here! It's after 2:12AM. It got hot today here in the Inland Valley, but as always my room didn't start smokin' until 7:30PM when the Sun starts sinking in the west and all those photons and infrared waves sneak beneath the redwood boughs and do their magic on the front walls and windows.

Once the Sun slips behind the hills, we open the drapes and windows up front and the sliding glass doors on the back of the house and fire up the fans...I never had a chance to look at a thermometer today so I can't know how hot it was, but when I was out in it, it wasn't oppressive.

Even at Mom's Church Social it was nice and cool...thanks to the brand new central air conditioning that just came online! Two luncheons ago the HVAC guys were installing the system, and I don't remember the early May soiree either way temp-wise.

So I should be sleeping...the alarm's getting me up at 6:30AM...after a month of trying, SturgeUrge and I are halibut hunting in the morning...once the sweat on my forehead dries, I'm jumping in the shower and closing the peepers for what's becoming customary this month...about three hours.

I actually got a full night's sleep last night...it was a "Rest Day" on the Tour de France, and there's another ten days until the next Grand Prix, though I'll be happy to lose some more sleep for the next two weeks...the Tour has been fantastic so far! With most of the favorites sidelined, the 99th Tour de France is wide open in every way. New stars are being born before our very eyes.

This year's sensation is 22 year old Slovak, Peter Sagan who's exploded into the Pro Peloton this year. Sagan won the first four stages of the AMGEN Tour of California this May, on his way to five stage wins in the ToC!

Fast forward to the French countryside, Sagan's won three of nine stages in the Tour's first week despite hitting the pavement at least once. Each time Sagan has crossed the finish line first, he's made an outrageous victory gesture, variously called the Chicken Dance (or chicken wing flap)...he pantomimed a jogger's arm swings which he said was his "Forrest Gump" as he couldn't stifle his joyous laughter, and lastly he did his "Angry Hulk" flex (from the Marvel Comics' Incredible Hulk franchise) crossing the line and keeping the sprinter's Green Jersey. Young Sagan is a whirlwind of happy, happy, joy, joy...and it's a shot in the arm for the staid old Grande Boucle!

What a great race the British Grand Prix turned out to be...but that's a story for a night I don't have to obey bedtime!

WooHoo! best Halibut Tides of the Year! Good morning!

Weird With a Beard

San Francisco is busy as a bee this week...

The Hanger1 blimp has been in town for a couple of weeks now providing gorgeous beauty shots for the Giants broadcasts. Thursday afternoon they had great footage of the Team Oracle USA AC45 catamarans zipping across the Bay. There's plenty for them to keep a camera on this weekend, even with the Giants on the road. 

The United States Open Golf Tournament is in town for the weekend at the Olympic Club.

The San Francisco Giants just finished a six game home stand that featured Matt Cain's Perfect Game.

Team Oracle USA, defending America's Cup Champions are sailing their 45 ft AC45 racers on the Bay and treating local luminaries to an afternoon on the water. Giants manager Bruce Bochy went for a sail with skipper Russel Coutts the morning of Cain's perfecto.

The 12 story tall Wingsails for Team Oracle's AC72 America's Cup racers arrived in San Francisco this week. The Team Oracle USA's AC72s will be testing on San Francisco Bay beginning this August...that's gonna be some spectacle! These boats are predicted to go 46 knots...that's 52.9mph in new money.

OK here's where it gets weird...Today's celebrity guest on the Oracle AC45?

90s Pop/Rap Megastar, MC Hammer (He of the infamous parachute pants) "U Can't Touch This"




Not to take anything away from HammerTime...it's just that I've always associated him with Oakland, not The City. For all the talk about progressive/liberal San Francisco, when it comes to Oakland, The City clings to it's chauvinism, and has at least since Gertrude Stein quipped of Oakland: "There's no there, there"

This season the halibut are taking their own sweet time to migrate into San Francisco Bay, so halibut fishing season should be in full swing when the big catamarans come out to play!

Vector Control

Last week I got an email from BajaBabe asking me to send her some Bay Laurel Leaves-'They cost a fortune in the bottle here' she wrote.

It just happened that I was heading over to the SturgeUrge Compound anyway, so when I got there I told him I was going to snip a bough or two to send north. "Not to worry" says Urge, "I've got some I cut today, just a second. I'll grab some you can have" and out the door he went.

The SturgeUrge Compound sits on about an acre near the bottom of a northeast facing wooded canyon. A half dozen similar lots up the canyon all share the private road, and every lot has the mixed redwood, California bay laurel, and coast live oaks. The little enclave disfavors suntanning, but it's definitely an oasis when the mercury reaches into the 80s. The California Bay Laurels are a culinary extra...everywhere you look it's like a pantry...Bay Leaf City.

Urge came through the front door and thrust two huge branches of bay leaves at me and we sat down in the front room and chewed the fat for a beer or so. I grabbed the branches and said "Thanks and goodnight, I'll drop you a DVD of our day on the Bay with the USS Iowa next time I'm in the neighborhood". Out to the car I strode, I tossed the bay leaf branches in the back seat, and hit the road.

A day or two later, I grabbed the branches from the car and gazed on them for the first time in bona fide daylight. The leaves looked like they had Black Spot Rose Disease, like I battled in the summer of 2010 in the Ancestral Diggins. Into the green waste container they went. I phoned SturgeUrge this afternoon and asked about the spots. I remember that Urge lost an oak tree over his driveway a some years ago to the then newly discovered Sudden Oak Death Syndrome. I quizzed him about Sudden Oak Death Syndrome, and if the Bay Laurel was susceptible to the pathogen. Urge said the Bay trees are a carrier species..."Looks like Rose Black Spot Fungus" I replied. Urge said between his oak and the neighbors, they'd lost at least a half dozen Coastal Live Oaks in their little canyon hideaway in the last few years. We finished up by making some plans to get a fishing trip in this weekend...if the winds allow it...stay tuned...

This afternoon I had to go to the grocery store for a few staples...milk, OJ, grapefruit juice and another bunch of watercress. On my way to the store, I made a detour through Canyon, CA in search of bay leaves and to find an old feral Damson Plum tree that I remember from three plus decades ago. Those now wild plums were like candy, and they made incredible preserves.

The plum tree is MIA, the sunny wide spot at the canyon bottom didn't hold it's sweet surprise anymore. I pulled into several turnouts with bay trees...every one displayed the telltale spots. I thought better of sending any probably infected but asymptomatic bay leaves to BajaBabe's locale.

Back at the beginning of the Sudden Oak Death Syndrome epidemic, BajaBabe herself spent a summer on the front lines of the SODS war with the US Forest Service doing an inventory from south to north in California looking for SODS infected plots of forest. To hear her tell it, she earned every penny that summer! Bushwacking is the word that comes to mind...

I'm sure I can get a glassine envelope full of bay leaves next time I'm in a market with a Mexican Spice Section, for 99 cents.

That's all this afternoon...I've gotta get in a cold shower before the Giants game.

After Dinner Update:
OMG the Bitten Word's Beet Rhubarb and Orange Salad rocks when you remember the Feta Cheese!  ★★★★★

USS Iowa Video Clip

From Saturday's tow on San Francisco Bay:



An extraordinary day on San Francisco Bay, sunny and calm winds. Mother Nature favored the Iowa and all her floating fans.

Thursday May 31st Update:
Thanks for linking me Pacific Battleship Center!
New visitors, if you like my video it would be great if you liked my CorduroyPlanet Facebook Page. Click and LIKE me, thanks!

I've got more USS Iowa posts and photos here as well. Click on CorduroyPlanet in the masthead above and scroll down, or click on USS Iowa in the tag cloud at the bottom of the right hand frame.

USS Iowa Photos

SturgeUrge and I launched the F/V SturgeUrge from Richmond's Marina Bay Yacht Harbor around 0900 Saturday morning. The winds were around 5 kts out of the south, identical to the NWS forecast. We idled out of the No Wake zone and accelerated into the main channel.

We hung a right into Ford Channel where the Iowa was berthed. We were the only pleasure craft on the waterway. Iowa was attended by two tugs, one standing off while the Tractor Tug was alongside Iowa's bow passing lines and rigging for towing. I snapped some photos and we headed out to San Francisco Bay.

SturgeUrge and I were going halibut fishing. According to the schedule printed in the San Francisco Chronicle, Iowa would leave Richmond at 1100, so we had time to do a couple of drifts on Southampton Shoal. An 11 pound halibut was caught at the south end of the Shoal Friday near the Berkeley Pier, and a 28 lb flatty across the Bay off Paradise mid-week. Though the tides weren't favorable for halibut, you can't catch halibut if you're not halibut fishing.

The Bay was a little lumpier than we expected for 9AM so we elected to forgo the trip all the way down the Shoal to avoid some pounding and to keep an eye on Iowa as the tow would begin after the bottom of the tide.

After an hour or so I noticed Iowa beginning to move. They were backing her down Ford Channel. We ran south and east for another drift though our baits were completely unmolested. Iowa was approaching the main channel, and we could see her getting close to the Liberty Ship Red Oak Victory that's berthed across Ford Channel at Ferry Point. Even though we were a mile or so away, I snapped lots of photos...you know, history and all...

Ferry Point lay of the land: General Warehouse, Whirly Crane, Red Oak Victory, and Iowa ready to turn towards the Bay.11AM Saturday 5/26/2012

As Iowa began moving towards the Bay proper, I started rigging my camcorder and tripod.

Iowa was making way looking magnificent in her new paint with Point Richmond as a backdrop.  She looked stately as she approached the main Bay. I began rolling video.

I'd set up my tripod as a monopod so I could try to absorb the swells and keep the camera on the subject. As Iowa neared the end of the main channel, SturgeUrge noticed that the swell was laying down...exactly the opposite of the forecast, and the normal order of things on San Francisco Bay from Spring through Fall.

Iowa made the main Bay off Richmond. She was now a half mile to our northwest, and she was starting to draw a crowd. Curiously, Iowa began turning north between the Chevron Pier and Red Rock Island. We counted five tugs loitering near the Iowa, along with a Coast Card cutter, lots of sailboats and more fishing skiffs. We wondered what they were doing...was Iowa being hijacked to Stockton? Finally Iowa's 270° pirouette was completed and she was headed south towards San Francisco. The wind and swell had abated enough that SturgeUrge said "we can flank her until Angel Island"

Iowa and Potomac cross Raccoon Straits The Goldan Gate's north tower peaks over Angel Island

The flotilla was growing quickly now. As Iowa headed south, the USS Potomac, president Franklin D Roosevelt's Presidential Yacht passed the battleship heading north. Rounding Iowa at her stern, Potomac headed south to flank Iowa as she approached the central Bay. It was getting very busy as Iowa reached Raccoon Straits between the Tiburon Peninsula and Angel Island. An antique San Francisco Fire Boat took up a position behind Iowa and began blowing fountains of water into the air as tribute to the mighty battle wagon.

While I was watching through my camcorder's LCD screen, SturgeUgre's head was on a swivel. We took evasive action three or four times as Iowa passed Angel Island and turned west towards the Golden Gate. There was a new lump on the bay...not from wind or swell, but boat traffic was getting insane, and the criss-crossing wakes made the water confused. A pair of F18 fighter jets flew west high overhead, as private aircraft,  TV News helicopters, and the Hanger1 blimp joined the impromptu air show.

We followed Iowa around Point Blunt, the southeast corner of Angel Island. This was special stuff, rarely do we ever venture around Angel Island. The waters to the south of the island are directly in line with the Golden Gate, and the winds and swell are usually too much for the 17 ft F/V SturgeUrge...Saturday? The Gods were with us and the Iowa...had the large flotilla not been churning the waters, it would have been like a lake out there. We ran to the southwest corner and made a couple of drifts as the Iowa's parade headed west.

Twenty minutes into my second 63 minute MiniDV tape, the camcorder's battery died and the freshly charged extra battery wasn't working either...I pressed my digital camera into movie making, missing all the beauty shots of Iowa with San Francisco in the background.

We probably could have joined the parade and ventured west closer to the Golden Gate Bridge, but we were nearing the frontier of our comfort range on the Bay. The weather wasn't the issue, the crowed waters were. We demurred...discretion being the better part of valor and all that. The Golden Gate statistically is the second most dangerous inlet on the West Coast of the States after Cape Disappointment on the Columbia River.

When Iowa neared the famous span, they began another unexpected turn north. That's when we realized that these turns were planned photo opportunities! Bless the Pacific Battleship Center for honoring the battleship Iowa and photographers and enthusiasts!

As Iowa made her way under the bridge, we turned east and drifted the eastern beaches of Angel Island...the fish just weren't biting. With a mind to the clock, we decided to head to the south end of Southampton Shoals and drift fished home to Richmond. We drifted perfectly all the way to the Richmond Rockwall, the end of Richmond Harbor's main channel where we tracked Iowa from at the beginning of our day.

Mission accomplished...except for the halibut deal...

USS Iowa Update

The Big Stick sails today at 11AM. SturgeUrge and I will be on the water for the occasion.

I'll post photos here Saturday evening.

USS Iowa- It's On for Saturday

The Weather Gods have calmed the savage seas off Central and Southern California, so the Pacific Battleship Center will move the USS Iowa from Richmond, CA to Los Angeles beginning on Saturday May 26th, 2012

Check that date...it's one day shy of the 75th Birthday Celebration of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The San Francisco Chronicle's story has a handy schedule and tips on where to view the battleship as it's towed through San Francisco Bay, and under the birthday bridge.

It looks like the northerlies that have been blowing hard all week will abate a little Saturday allowing SturgeUrge and I to put the boat on the Bay for some history and halibut.

LIVE Webcam link of Iowa's voyage.

On And Off

I'm ready to nod off again...no wonder, I've been busy...and all without a nap...

I loaded the car this morning...maybe a dozen times up and down the stairs, locked up the DaveCave and headed out by 10AM.

As I was swinging through Soda Springs, I passed Jeweler's house and saw his car out front with the door open, and the front door of his place open as well...I hung a U-ey and pulled into the driveway next to the open car door...

We spent a half hour catching up before I pointed the car downhill and hit the SuperSlab.

I put it in long distance drive, and turned up the radio...road construction was much less onerous than on Monday's trip to the County Seat, and I kept it pointed west until I reached Vacaville and pulled off I-80 to hit my favorite Asian Grocery, where I picked up some baby bok choi, shitake mushrooms and some Chinese pea pods.

I arrived at the Ancestral Digs an hour before the Giants game's first pitch...the Giants were playing the Miami Marlins in the Marlin's brand new half a billion dollar stadium, resplendent with expansive views of downtown Miami thru the outfield windows, and the marine aquariums flanking home plate filled with neon colored reef fish.

The game went 1-1 into the 6th, when the Giants exploded for four runs! The Marlins answered with four in the 7th, and then the game really went off the hook! Final score Giants 14, Marlins 7! It was a wild one!

Mercifully, Mom said she'd take us out to Chinese, but I whined about spending enough time in the car today and Sister K went down to the closest Chinese joint and came back with four delicious entrees instead.

It turns out that the local joint is excellent! They gave Sister K a complimentary beer while she waited, and sent her home with dinner, plus a bonus grocery bag of fresh, local organic produce!  We'll be heading down to dine at the joint soon...not only are they the nearest Chinese Restaurant, but they're all organic, don't use any MSG, and they have a Sushi Bar too!

Sometime during the afternoon, the Pacific Battleship Center announced that the USS Iowa will set sail on Saturday morning from Richmond to Los Angeles.

Oh perfect, SturgeUrge and I will be out there on the Fishing Vessel SturgeUrge Saturday halibut fishing and giving "The Big Stick" an escort of sorts as she plies the Bay out under the Golden Gate Bridge that's celebrating it's 75th Birthday Saturday...perfect indeed...let's hope the halibut are biting!

Lookin' For Lincoln

OK, that didn't take long. They say Curiosity killed the cat. While not a bee in my bonnet per se, this Lincoln Highway thing is beginning to consume me...or at least my time.

Wednesday's foray into Berkeley caused me to miss the Giants game (though I watched the cable replay...after I knew the final score) Not a trace to be found, though the view of the Berkeley Pier was stunning, as was the view of the cable catwalks up to the new tower of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge...they'll start pulling cable soon.

On the internet and on the ground, the Lincoln Highway plays coy...searches don't exactly work...that is, when I search "Lincoln Highway" I get results that are close, but not exactly what I'm looking for. I settle for close enough...start reading...and then another source reveals itself.

Lots of these "near hits" are blogs or archived newspaper columns of the human interest variety, from before Daily Newspapers embraced the internet, hence the articles aren't tagged for searching, or haven't got enough hits to attract Google's searchbots.

The Lincoln Highway Association (LHA) cites several books on the highway, and links to the publisher, but these books aren't on Amazon or Barnes and Noble's website. I visited my local Barnes and Noble today. The books are in their system, but they can't order them for me...I'm guessing that the LHA has an exclusivity deal with the publisher. They're in a no-win situation I guess...more profit from the books for the LHA, but less audience online. I'll mention this when I order "Lincoln Highway: California"

I talked to SturgeUrge this afternoon...he's going to a family function in Stockton for the weekend. I was able to inform him that Stockton's Waterloo Road was once a piece of the Lincoln Hwy...I bored him with the Berkeley Pier story too. SturgeUrge evened the score with a fishing report from Tuesday.

SturgeUrge took his nephew out after halibut Tuesday...they couldn't buy a bite, and missed a few drivebys...slightly mauled baits that SturgeUrge thought were sharks not halibut. Then on the last bait of the day, the nephew nails a 29 inch striped bass! Good on ya, Casey!

Late Report

Late Report are the words everyone at my Online Fishing Club uses when they post a fishing report on the club's forums when it's not posted on the day of the fishing trip.

Here on CorduroyPlanet, this time, it means I'm two days late posting Sunday's blog.


First the Late Report: SF Bay Halibut
We launched the FV SturgeUrge at Richmond a little more than an hour before the top of the tide.

First drift near the Platform on Southampton Shoals.

Bait, frozen anchovy

26 in halibut on the first bait of the day! Fish in the box within 10 minutes! High fives, didn't think to snap any pictures.

That was it for the day.

We were mostly by ourselves all morning, we guessed everyone was after salmon at Duxbury Reef, of the Marin Coast.

It turned into one gorgeous afternoon once the gray burned off.

We met fellow CoastsideFishingClub.com member Blue Dolphin at the ramp, they had one Dux salmon and said the jellies weren't a problem.

Note: With a little embellishment here, that's the report I posted on Coastside. We have a paywall to protect the Fishing Report Forums. The dues the members contribute go to the club's ongoing fight to protect fisheries and fishing access...alas, Sportsfishermen rank right down with tobacco smokers in California these days, so these fights eventually take place in front of a judge...

Monday's trip was the capper to a very satisfying three weeks in July. Dog Days baseball is so much sweeter when your team are defending World Series Champions,  are selling out every home game, avoided their traditional "June Swoon", are playing their highly entertaining "Torture" style of ball, and are leading the division. They're a joy to watch.

The first three weeks of July featured the 98th Tour de France, full of drama, unexpected heroes, too many first week crashes, and in it's last four days...fireworks and grit in the Alps before the first Australian ever donned the final maillot jaune and stood atop the podium in Paris. Good on ya, Cadel Evans!

My weekend featured a dash up and down the hill. Two roughly four hour drives in 27 hours, and I was totally whipped!

It's curious...I do 9-10 hours a night 4-5 nights a week in my BR350 all winter, and never feel as tired as I did after running up the hill Friday and back down Saturday. Heck, I even slept in my own bed between trips!

You know what it is? There are no motorists out on My mountain...rocks and trees never change lanes without looking. Make your highway forays on Friday and Saturday and the white knuckle factor rises even more. CalTrans summer road construction turns up the volume another notch, so I understand my fatigue.

Today, I can say: "It's a Good Tired"

Things of Beauty

What a pitching clinic I watched this evening!

On his first trip back to the mound after getting destroyed in his last start, 21 year old San Francisco Giants pitcher, Madison Bumgarner put his previous debacle behind him and fanned 11 batters while giving up only one walk to tally the win.

In his last start, the first eight batters he faced got hits...yes eight hits in a row! He was pulled after getting the first out, but all eight hits became runs. Bumgarner struck out the opposing pitcher, gave up a ninth hit, and got the hook.

Tonight it looked like the young pitcher had ice water flowing through his veins.

The rest of the team looked like the World Champions they are too.Besting the Cleveland Indians 3-2 to sweep the three game series, the Giants are back on track, and back atop the National League West.

If Bumgarner's amazing comeback wasn't enough, the Giants' relief pitcher Jeremy Affeldt got the save by striking out five of the six batters he faced. Affeldt who's been on a roll for the last three weeks or so, had a curve ball that was flat-out un-hittable tonight. It was an amazing thing to see. A thing of beauty if you will.

The game was the national game on ESPN, seen in much of the country. (The Giants are the defending World Champions after all!) I put my new gadget the radioSHARK2 to good use synching the radio play-by-play through my computer with the High Definition TV broadcast via Comcast cable.

The Giants' broadcasters are too good not to listen to. Giants' play-by-play announcer, Jon Miller is a Hall Of Fame broadcaster bestowed with Cooperstown's Ford C Frick Award in 2010.

Miller cracked me up during a lull in the action when he did his Vin Scully impression. It was truly laugh-out-loud funny. Scully is the Hall Of Fame radio voice of the LA Dodgers. Miller's impression was spot-on and good natured, but still wickedly funny because it was so unexpected.

After the game I started scanning the web for some San Francisco Bay Halibut intel. SturgeUrge and I are heading onto the Bay Monday to salve our sturgeon wounds from last week's Monday fishing trip.

While looking at a "Halibut Try Report" from Tomales Bay, I read: "The water is still a little cold north of Hog Island. I guess it's late again, and things will heat up soon..."

That was like a light switch going on in my memory. I've heard something akin to that every year now since at least 2002...it's always a fishing report...salmon, Baja Bluewater Big Game, NorCal Albacore, even Sacramento River Shad...

I'm calling it a Bona Fide Trend...make that a Bona Fide Decadal Trend!

Did I mention that we may get rained on mid-week? Of course there'd be a Gulf of Alaska, mid-winter style cold front headed my way...I've been entertaining a trip up the Hill for a few days of R&R on my Pickup.

I'm really wondering what my pickup did to incur Mother Nature's Wrath like it has this year!

Making Progress

From where I sit, it's hard to tell where exactly I'm at.

I have slept all the way through the night for the past two nights, so the BodyClock reset project seems to be on track...I'm still feeling body weary in the evening...maybe a few more days then...

My first week at the Ancestral Digs has hit most of the bases so far. Mom's doin' fine, BajaBabe made it to town and we're having a fine old time. The San Francisco Bay halibut have gone on the bite, but the wind is still keeping a lid on Salmon Season.

I did see some disturbing Tweets this evening however...KCRA3's @MarkFinan tweeted this...then this...and now this! Steady Dave...Sunday's five days out still...and the models Finan cites are the Sacramento Office's runs...best taken with a grain of salt!

There is a lot of snow on the ground over Old Highway 40's Donner Summit (Stage 2 of the AMGEN Tour of California) I can't imagine that there's much chance of measurable snowfall in mid-May...though there's still some La Niña residual hanging around...and I have seen snow every month of the year up there...the Morning News showed radar echoes of showers over the Tahoe Sierra, Jeweler said: "Just a dusting on Donner Summit, but four inches reported in South Lake Tahoe"!

I checked the webcams, but I didn't actually see any evidence of new snow...

We'll put all this weather speculation on the back burner for a few days and wait to see what shakes out...

I watered the Ancestral Diggins for the first time today, and researched for some solid answers on my irrigation automation install. I haven't checked the soil temps yet, but I'm definitely not late planting-wise. I've got all my difficult to find seeds in stock and they should be sprouting soon. BajaBabe and I will scout the local nurseries this afternoon for candidates to cultivate.

We had a visitor to the Diggins in the morning too..she was camera shy, but I got a snap of her before my ham-handed "stalking skills" spooked her...

We squired my Mom to her monthly Church Social today and had a grand old time in spite of the fact that attendance was off by maybe 40%...Lot's of God's Children opted for tropical renewal after the long cold, wet Winter I'd wager!

Fish and Finns

"Our Side" of the Boat Ramp with Finns

Friday was a good day. SturgeUrge and I got to get a line wet. It's been a month since we got out to chase halibut on San Francisco Bay.

We got together Thursday night to catch up and watch some preseason football. SturgeUrge roasted chickens on the BBQ spit with some veggies and pineapple spears. A nice Chalone chardonnay tied everything together.

Friday morning I put together the boat lunch, packed the cooler, and checked the Outer Richmond Harbor Buoy just in case conditions weren't in the boat's "performance envelope" At 0730 the wind was South at 6mph, and Thursday at 0730 just about the same, increasing to 16mph around the time we'd be coming back in to put the boat back on the trailer at the end of our day.

So, I rolled over to the SturgeUrge Compound and we hitched up the boat, topped up our coffee and hit the road. Traffic was quite light...even for a Friday, and we made it to the Richmond Marina in great time. When we pulled up to the gate however, there was a Ford pickup blocking the coin-operated gate, and they're erected a huge white Event Tent in the parking lot...right next to the top of the boat ramp.

The pickup was a contractor's work truck, and we found the workers who moved the rig so we could pay the box a ten spot to open the gate, and get ready to launch. Inside the gate was a bustling scene that we'd never seen before.

The Big Tent wasn't for a party, it was the Finn Inspection Tent. There was one side panel left open on the corner adjacent to the top of the two lane boat ramp. This served as the entrance door to the carpeted tent. Staged outside this door were a dozen or so small racing sailboats on little hand operated trailers call dollies. The dozen or so Finn-Class racers, each on it's dolly did a bang up job of blocking one of the two lanes of our boat ramp! That would be the lane we usually use to launch and retrieve from.

We shrugged off the glitch in our usual launch routine and used the eastern lane. SturgeUrge parked the tow rig and we motored out of the marina and towards our adventure. The wind had picked up in the two hours since I checked the buoy online...it was up to 10mph or so, but well within our comfort zone.

Of course, Comfort Zone is a relative term...once we cleared the breakwall, and enter the Bay proper, we found some big groundswell that had swells of the perfect shape to optimize the spray so it could be carried by the freshening wind onto the just cleaned windshield, and over the winshield onto us!

We had the quick "Waddya think?" discussion and decided to do one drift over Southampton Shoals, the ground in the insistent groundswells.

It was a slow slog, the swells were steep and a couple of feet tall...occasionally the boat would be deep in the trough and the bow would dip a tiny bit of the oncoming swell...SturgeUrge handled the helm with aplomb as we slowly motored south towards the Berkeley Pier. We made it about a third of the way down the Shoals before the need to fish got the better of us. We knew that we'd be doing one drift on Southampton before we'd beat our way accross the Bay to the Tiburon shoreline named Paradise. I'm sure it got the name Paradise because of the wind shadow there that makes that part of the Bay seem like Paradise on Earth compared to the churning, blustery main body of the Bay!

We were about half way into a moderate incoming tide when we dropped our baits into the Bay, so the South wind aligned with the tidal current...perfect!

Somebody forgot to tell the halibut! We finished the slightly off-kilter drift without a bite...our baits came up without a scratch on 'em, so we headed over to Paradise.

There was still some wind at Paradise, but the water was flat. We made a couple of long drifts and SturgeUrge caught a Smooth Hound Shark of the usual size...around 20 inches long. Quickly released, the shark went home and we went about our business. I made lunch...ham and swiss on a sourdough roll. The slice of heirloom tomato, "Pineapple" variety, and the thin sliced red onion made it special.

The halibut still weren't feeling special about our offerings however...usually, making lunch ensures a bite...not Friday...then the wind came up...in Paradise...things were getting rock and roll-y now. We decided to head back and call it a day...the fish weren't biting and were were starting to feel a little beat up...we picked 'em up and began to slowly motor east towards the Richmond harbor.

Less than a mile into the beat, we were becalmed! No wind and flat water! SturgeUrge slowed the boat, and we put 'em back in. Sturge's line started doing something weird about a minute later, so he began to reel it in...he said he had some weeds caught of his rig...then he yelled: "Get the net!" The weeds were actually a fine halibut! SturgeUrge asked if it was a keeper, and asked for the Stick.

The Stick is a piece of clothes pole, an inch and a quarter pine dowel, that SturgeUrge marked with measurements for minimum legal length for the species we fish for. California Halibut must be 22 inches minimum to be "Keepers" The stick enables an accurate measurement before you net the fish. We prefer not to net any halibut that we're going to release. Halibut are very vulnerable to having their fins torn in the net, and since halibut are almost always are lip-hooked, they have low release-mortality when you don't net them before you release them. The Stick does double duty as a "Priest" or fish bat, used to dispatch any fish that "go in the box" AKA Keepers, AKA Groceries!

The fine halibut was a couple of inches short, perfectly lip-hooked, and an easy candidate for release. Done. That was it for the catching part of our adventure. It took all of 15 minutes for the wind to get back in gear, so we decided to call it a day.

It was lumpier now, so we took some spray as we beat back across the Bay. I scanned the outer harbor to find the RCMC1 Buoy on the way in. The buoy that  I thought was it, wasn't. I'll use my handheld GPS next time to get an exact fix on our friend Buoy RCMC1

We cleared the breakwater...the usual bunch of Kite Surfers were missing in action. We wondered where are all the Finns? Most of the way in, we found two kite surfers...and one Finn. We tidied up the deck, racked the fishing rods and made ship-shape for landing...as we entered the No Wake Zone a lone Finn blew by us...making a fine wake!

The ramp was a textbook example of the "Boat Ramp Follies"...we'd have to be extra-careful so as not to become the stars of this movie!

"Our Side" of the ramp and it's dock were clear from the water, the top of our lane was still parked up with Finn Dollies...there was a dolly in the water at the bottom of our lane as well...the wind was blowing perpendicular to the ramp at 10mph...gusting to 13...we needed to be on our side so we could recover with dry feet and little drama. At my insistence, SturgeUrge rolled the wet dolly out of our way, and backed the trailer down the ramp all akimbo, so we could trailer the boat...We nailed it first time! SturgeUrge pulled the rig over to the washdown lane, and I walked past the Finn Tent to the restroom to change into my shorts.

At the top of the ramp, behind the herd of Finns and dollies there were two photos freshly-posted by the Harbormaster. These pictures, printed on plain, letter sized stock showed the boat ramp. Posted one atop the other, the top photo showed the boat ramp, clear and uncluttered. Over the photo was a green circle. The bottom photo showed the gaggle of Finn Dollies monopolizing the right lane and half of the left lane of the ramp. Over the "Cluster F*ck" photo the International Red Circle With a Slash Symbol for "Do Not"

SturgeUrge was pissed off with the whole scene...the Finn sailors weren't any help...most were French and Italians who didn't (or wouldn't) speak any English. They were clearly ignoring the rules in every language.

It turns out that the Event in the Finn Gold Cup. It runs all week. It's not the America's Cup, but it is a Big Deal. The Tent is really the Scrutineering Tent, where the boats are inspected to make sure they're within the rules. These sailors are Olympic Class Athletes...they obey the rules in the Tent and on the water...at the Boat Ramp? Not so much.

Weekend Wondering 2

I've been enjoying a longish, low key weekend...watching some motorsports, a couple of baseball games, and some Tour de France stages.

I went halibut fishing with SturgeUrge, and came face to face with the weather. Nothing serious, but we didn't catch any halibut.

We nearly went on another Bay Area Boat Ramp Tour Monday as we found "sheep in the meadow" when we pulled up to the Richmond shoreline. Surprised for the second time in as many trips, I made a "Note To Self": Find an online weather station for the Richmond Harbor area.

We launched into steady 15mph winds. Still under the protection of the breakwall, we were taking some spray over the gunnels and the bow. We nursed our coffee cups as we ducked spray and surveyed the bay proper as it hove into view. Cap'n Urge said: "Lets just motor over to Paradise" "Good plan", I agreed.

We bumped across the Bay and took in the splendid vistas. To our South, a big finger of fog was streaming in through the Golden Gate, wrapping the top of Angel Island, and obscuring the Bay Bridge, before it turned North above Berkeley to crawl over the East Bay Hills east of El Cerrito.

The Southernly Winds had blown up some semi-serious waves that were keeping things animated. I'd packed a lunch of mostly finger foods, plus some potato salad. It's a little rough wrapping cantaloupe pieces with thin-sliced Black Forest Ham in a washing machine...not to mention pouring French Roast into travel cups from the thermos! Seemingly, the halibut were paying little attention to the luncheon we were serving at their table either.

We had a couple of raked baits, but in the churning conditions, the subtle take of a halibut was effectively invisible. We saw a dozen or so other boats fishing halibut in the area...but we didn't see any nets flying or bent rods.

Mother Nature won Monday. We bailed out early and were back in the Inland Valley before 5PM. We cleaned up the boat and tow vehicle and had a cold beer. We both claimed to be grateful that there weren't any slimy fish to butcher!

Back at the Ancestral Digs, I noshed on the boat lunch for dinner and watched the bike race replay. The Yellow Jersey changed riders in the Pyrénées. Some controversy arose around the matter in which the Jersey changed hands 3km from the summit of Sunday's final big climb, the hors categorie Port de Balèsthe.

Leader Andy Schleck's chain came off his front chainring just as he launched his attack. Arch rival, Alberto Contador answered the attack instantly, passing Schleck to his left as Schleck's bike came to a halt, and Contador was seen to look back several times over the 3kms to the top. Schleck fixed his chain and chased furiously, but was unable to catch the Contador Group as they flew down the big mountain towards the finish.

Two opposing Thought Camps have risen in the wake of this pass.

One camp says that Contador's move into the maillot jaune wasn't "sporting", that the Gentleman's Agreement in cycle racing says the race must be settled mano a mano, not by mechanical misfortune, and that Contador clearly knew he was dishonoring this unwritten law.

The opposing camps says: "That's racing" to quote NASCAR's evergreen cliche. There were boos heard as Contadore donned the Yellow Jersey Monday after the Stage, and again after Tuesday's Stage.

This year's Tour de France celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Tour's first visit to the high passes of the Pyrénées. The 2010 TdF will be remembered for it's heat waves, and the three weeks of high drama among the Contenders. Wednesday is the second rest day of the Tour, and the ultimate winner will most likely be decided Thursday, the final mountain stage of the Tour.

As befits the Tour's Centennial in the Pyrénées, the Organizers have the riders traversing three huge passes, the first catagory Col de Marie-Blanc and Col du Souler, before finishing atop the hors categorie Col Du Tourmalet.

39 seconds separate Schleck and Contador. The first stage after a rest day is always a crap shoot...the body sometimes reacts in unexpected ways to a low effort "Rest Day". Not uncertain is the fact that Thursday's Drama-O-Rama, Stage 17 will be worthy of a Centennial Celebration.

While I watched the coverage from the Pyrénées Monday I remembered my "Note To Self", and then remembered that the Weather Underground forecast pages have added a Weather Station Link List at the bottom of the Forecast Homepage. I looked around Weather Underground until found the Richmond buoy on the Richmond,CA forecast page. The links include Official, Academic, Commercial, and Personal Weather Stations (PWS)

Another wonder of the Internet, the PWS's are going to make the World smaller and more convenient for internet users everywhere. Personal Weather Stations have fascinated me since they first entered my consciousness, some twenty+ years ago. Simple battery powered PWS's can be had for a pittance. The more elaborate, internet-connected Stations start upwards of $800, so many thanks are in order to the magnanimous weather geeks who put theirs online for the rest of us! Several instrument makers offer PWS's that connect to the internet without involving any other computers, conserving the resources of your Home Network! You access your PWS on the web, like the rest of the world.

Like everything else electronic, eventually the economies of scale and the law of supply and demand will kick in and millions of PWS's will cover Our World. I'll be keeping my ear to the PWS Rail...I'm thinking there may be yet another CorduroyPlanet Toolbox trying to be born here.

I'll keep my eyes open and decide in plenty of time to build and install the CP PWS Toolbox by the time the chairlifts start turning on My Mountain.