Salmon Highway gets the green light

At the front of the boat, the rod tip started to dance and, right off, “the old man and the sea” knew he had a big one.

It was Bob Love of San Francisco, pointed south as he engaged the fish, and the salmon, pointed north, acted as if it were heading for Alaska. The 20-pounders — and bigger — are now lining up on the Salmon Highway as they stage and launch on their annual fall migration. The Salmon Highway is along the inshore Marin coast, through the Golden Gate and past Tiburon in San Francisco Bay, en route through the Carquinez Strait to the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.

Love typically puts in his line at the bow on his trips out of Fisherman’s Wharf. At the bow, trolling, your bait is the first one to greet the salmon when Capt. Jacqueline Douglas maneuvers toward a fresh school of fish.

At the hookup, he is able to provide the exact right tension to keep the fish from popping the hook. Then, like a magician, he works and weaves his way along the rail to the back of the boat to fight the fish.

Then, when the fish darts and bulldogs near the boat, he again provides just the right touch, like a master mechanic tightening a bolt, and leads it to the net.

Well, Bob caught the big one again last week, a 26-pounder, chrome-bright on the sides, cobalt-blue on the “shoulders,” as we call it, the type of fish that can pop all of your circuit breakers.

The average that day was a fish over 26 inches, what anglers call “commercial-grade,” with a few double and triple hookups.

“As I was buying some gear, I was talking to the Big 5 manager, and a friend of his caught a 40-pounder in Benicia,” said field scout and photographer Brian Murphy. “The guy actually had to wade out in the water to net the salmon. I told him, ‘I’m sorry we missed that big one on our trip in the ocean.’ ”

This all adds up as the green light for big fish on the Salmon Highway. The salmon start the trip by staging along the Marin coast, often just offshore Stinson Beach.

On their migratory journey, schools of big fish often stop along the Tiburon Peninsula, where they acclimate to changes in salinity and water temperatures. This allows anglers with smaller boats, such as designed for big lakes or the delta, to fish for salmon in calm bay waters.

When salmon pass through San Francisco Bay, it is an “interception fishery,” that is, you have to intercept the fish as they pass through it. The best spot is along Tiburon, what is called “California City.”

“It’s hot one day, everybody gets excited and goes out the next day, and by then, the fish are gone,” said Keith Fraser out of Loch Lomond Live Bait in San Rafael. “The salmon make an obscene gesture at the boats and take off upstream,” he added with a laugh.

The key time to fish is at the top of the tide and first two hours of the outgoing tide, “and it’s been that way since Cro-Magnon Man caught his first salmon at Cal City,” Fraser said.

In the line of fire

In my travels Wednesday, I was rumbling south on Interstate 5 in my truck, 387,000 miles now, in the Upper Sacramento River Canyon near Shasta Lake when a giant plume of smoke rose in the sky in front of me. It was the start of the Delta Fire. Before the Highway Patrol and Cal Fire could get there, southbound traffic stopped at LaMoine, and we watched the sudden firestorm engulf the canyon and trees explode along the road, right in front of us. Seeing this was as frightening as living through the ’89 earthquake in the Bay Area, where you felt helpless and trapped. We escaped when a CHP nudged an opening in the concrete center-divide barrier, and we were able to get through into the northbound lanes. In my video, I originally called it the “LaMoine Fire” after I heard a first responder call it that, and it made sense, from our view, it was just south of the LaMoine exit. While I processed my video, I found out later the fire was named the Delta Fire. I left my video title intact as original, though it confused a few people, to capture an unrepeatable moment in time.

Tickets gone

An upcoming show I’m presenting, “Sierra Crossing,” a benefit for the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, sold out in a couple of days after it was announced, so a wait-list has been created for cancellations. The show is set for Sept. 20 at the new theater near the Ferry Building. This is my favorite trek anywhere, with adventure, discovery, world-class beauty, history and, at 70 miles, is short enough to do in a week. Info: www.commonwealthclub.org.