Noyo Fishing Center is now offering trolling for king salmon out of Fort Bragg aboard the vessels El Patron, Rumblefish and the new six pack, Double Vision. The Rumblefish returned back on May 1 with 18 fish for 10 anglers. The following day's trip produced 15 kings for 19 anglers. Saturday morning's trip yielded one fish per rod for 7 people, while the afternoon trip produced 9 salmon for 13 anglers.

"We have two great things going for us today," stated Captain Rick Thornton of Anchor Charters. "The fish are right in front of the harbor and ocean conditions are perfect. We landed 12 fish for 8 people in the morning and caught 6 limits during the afternoon trip. The big fish of the day weighed 30 pounds."

The anglers enticed the chinooks while trolling anchovies at 20 to 60 pulls deep over 25-70 fathoms of water, he noted. "The kings are really good quality fish, with a lot in the high teens and a fair amount of fish in the 20 to 30 pound range," noted Thornton. "We also pulled in a 96 pound blue shark during our latest trolling trip on May 4."

"If you slept in today, you missed one of the best days on the water for salmon fishing," confirmed Captain Randy Thornton at Telstar Charters. "The ocean was flat and the rain held off until the afternoon. The bite was so good that at one point we had four fish on the hook at once."

By 9:30 am, Telstar was back at the harbor with 7 limits of king salmon weighing 18 to 30 pounds. "The fish fell for both lures and bait," added Thornton.

"I went out salmon fishing prior to the latest storm," noted Jim Martin of Fort Bragg. "Throughout the early morning, everyone was catching limits of 20 pound kings. When I got off work, two buddies and I went out fishing in the afternoon and landed two fish to 8 pounds. We caught the fish trolling green Rotary Salmon Killers in 350 feet of water straight out from the Noyo Harbor."

"The commercial boaters started their season on May 1 and so far our fish scores have not been impacted,"added Martin. "Usually we will see the impact after about a month, especially if the salmon stay schooled up rather than scattering."

Martin emphasized that anglers planning to fish the Mendocino coast should make sure that they know the difference between a king and silver salmon, since you are not able to keep a silver salmon in the State of California.

Anglers outside the Golden Gate experienced similar action over the same weekend. Limits of bright kings averaging 10-15 pounds were caught by party boaters fishing out of Berkeley Marina. They enticed the fish southeast of the Farallon Islands about 17 miles from the Golden Gate.

Red hot salmon fishing was also the report out of Emeryville Sportfishing. Anglers found their limits of kings by running 18 miles southwest of the Golden Gate Bridge. The kings averaged 8 to 20 pounds.