Thursday, May 11 was an exciting day for fishing aboard the California Dawn out of the Berkeley Marina. The 10 anglers aboard the boat caught a total of 10 halibut to 18 pounds and 21 leopard sharks to 25 pounds while fishing at a variety of locations in San Francisco Bay.

Yet the biggest excitement, media-wise, was after the boat arrived back in its berth. Reporters from five TV stations and one radio station, agents from NOAA Fisheries, several Berkeley police officers and a crew of folks from the Marine Mammal Rescue Center congregated on the dock around the lair of the day’s biggest celebrity – “Callie,” also known as the Cal Dawn sea lion.

“Be very careful as you take your fish off the boat,” advised Steve Emmons, one of two deckhands that day and former skipper of the Delta Crawler. “The sea lion here attacked our cook yesterday and has taken fish off the dock lately.”

It what could be the first-ever documented, unprovoked attack of a sea lion, Tawny Houston, the California Dawn’s galley cook, was attacked by the surly fur bag after the boat unloaded the day before. The sea lion also attacked two other people that day, although neither were injured, fortunately.

“I was standing on the dock near the boat talking to somebody and all of a sudden the sea lion came out of the water and grabbed my calf,” said Houston. “It then released me and slid back down into the water, but in the process took a 2-1/2 inch gash out of my calf. It took out a chunk of flesh the size of a 50 cent piece in diameter and ¾ of an inch deep.”

Houston and her husband, Bob, then went to the emergency room to take care of the bizarre wound.

“What shocked me most was what would have happened to me if it had kept hold of me and dragged me into the water,” she said. “The nurses and doctor were able to irrigate the wound, then staple part of it and clean out the rest of it.”

She needed antibiotics to stop the spread of nasty bacteria that is in the saliva of the massive pinnipeds that inhibited healing.

“I was just standing on the dock – who would have ever imagined that the sea lion would have lunged out of the water for me,” she added. “This sea lion has been aggressive in the past, but has never actually attacked anybody until yesterday.”

As she was recovering from the attack on the day of my trip, Bob was cooking breakfast and lunch aboard the galley. However, she kept getting calls from reporters and decided to come down to the docks and be available for interviews.

“There’s never a dull day in Berkeley aboard the California Dawn,” quipped Captain James Smith, taking the media circus in stride. Fortunately, the pugnacious pinniped didn’t grab anybody’s fish or attack anybody on the afternoon after our trip – nor have any attacks been reported since.

Our day started just after 6 a.m. when Smith and his two deckhands, Captain Mike Gaddis and Steve Emmons, ventured out into the waters of the Berkeley Flats. “We’ll be fishing in less than 10 minutes, so make sure you are rigged up,” said Smith.

Smith explained to us his plan for the day – we would be fishing for halibut on the incoming tide in the local flats and then switch over to shark fishing in South San Francisco Bay during the outgoing tide. On all of the previous trips, Smith and his customers had experienced wide-open shark fishing.

We arrived at the spot, put our live bait rigs with 4 ounces of weight into the water and began drifting the Berkeley Flats near the Berkeley Pier. I had just gone into the cabin to get a Pepsi One when somebody yelled, “you got a bite on your rod.” I went over to the rod, and sure enough, there was a halibut on the line.

I set the hook and brought the fish right to the top. However, the fish came unhooked and a quick thrust of the net by James Smith put the fish in the boat. Unfortunately, the fish was short of the 22-inch minimum size limit and Smith released it back into the bay.

It wasn’t five minutes later when Rick Bairett, who had come all of the way from Milllani, Oahu, to meet his three brothers in California for their mother’s funeral, hooked a fish. The halibut wasn’t big, weighing a little over 4 pounds, but was definitely a keeper, a great way to start the day. He also shortly caught an 11 lb. halibut.

Jerome Smith of Daly City definitely had the “hot halibut rod” of the day. Over the next two hours, he caught three keeper halibut, his limit, up to 18 pounds.

“Why are you catching so many fish?” I quizzed Smith.

“I’m long lining with a long, light rod, light line and a one ounce weight,” he explained. “After I arrived in California from the East Coast, I had a problem catching halibut until I watched successful halibut anglers use this method and I tried it myself. I’ve catching halibut while using this method ever since.”

Other successful halibut anglers on the trip included Jim Weil of Moraga, who nailed two halibut, and Lee, who nailed the largest halibut of the day, an 18 pounder.

Anglers also released a few more undersize fish. Lok Lau released a small halibut, while Dave Marquardt of Antioch caught and released a shaker striped bass, the only bass hooked that day.

The halibut bite slowed down and Captain Smith drove the boat down into the south bay around A Buoy. We changed rigs from live bait leaders to shark leaders on sliding sinker rigs.

Smith and the deckhands cast the bait, salmon belly strips, with eight-ounce weights around the boat. We began hooking up immediately, but most of the first few fish hooked up where fish under the minimum size limit of 36 inches for leopard sharks.

As the outgoing tide began moving, the larger fish began biting, including some hefty leopards in the 20 to 25 pound class. It was crazy, wide-open fishing, with multiple anglers battling fish at any time.

“This is the best leopard shark bite I’ve seen for over 20 years when I fished aboard the Fury with Ernie Tritto,” I told Smith.

“It was even better over our past three trips,” said Smith. “The fishing actually has slowed a bit today from yesterday.”

We didn’t bag full boat limits, but a number of anglers nailed limits of quality leopard sharks. Bob Houston landed 3 huge leopard sharks, including the jackpot fish of the day, a 25 pound leopard – and Jim Weil seemed to be fighting a large leopard shark every time I looked.

Lok Lau landed a limit of hefty leopards, as well as releasing several shakers. The hot bite for the sharks was definitely on the stern, in contrast to the halibut fishing that morning, where the hottest action took place on the bow of the boat.

Likewise, I had an absolute blast fighting leopard sharks, landing four keepers, keeping my limit of three, and releasing at least three shakers. I wasn’t getting bites on a heavier rod I was using, so I switched over to one of the rental rods; I had loaned my favorite combo, a Tica rod and reel, to Lau to use for the day.

The 65 lb. test Berkley Power Pro line that Smith uses for shark and sturgeon fishing really allowed me to feel the bites – and is much preferable to using monofilament line in detecting both shark and sturgeon hits.

Dave Marquardt of Antioch was catching shaker after shaker until, on the final drift, he brought in the last shark of the day, a 15 pound male leopard.

What a day – solid halibut fishing, hot shark action and a media feeding frenzy back at the docks to greet a surly, bad news sea lion!