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The beauty of San Francisco Bay is a breath taking scene to most visitors who come to San Francisco. A little known fact to most of them is that bay is teaming with large amounts of fish under it's waters.

Growing up in San Francisco I have watched the bay go from a disposal site for large industrial plants, whom dumped their waste and sewage into this once pristine fishery.

During the past several decades a large effort has been put forth the protect the bay's fishery and other wild life. Even with this effort of conservation, warning signs are every where telling you that these game fish are still to this day loaded with mercury.

Halibut, shark, stripped bass, rays, salmon, king fish, sturgeon and anchovies all should not be eaten, or if so, one should consume very little of these fish if caught.

Many immigrants poach and illegally take this types of fish and resell them to unsuspecting consumers, usually in Asian markets locally. The demand is high.

However fishing these waters for many years aboard my boat "The Sea Raider", I have had many thrills of a fishing, A lifetime of catching and releasing large seven gill sharks, in the back drop of the San Francisco skyline.

As one looks out to the Bay Bride, a beautiful structure, the north tower at it's base is known as Peanut Hole. Here the current is a swift fast moving water jet way. Large seven gill sharks comb the bottom near sixty to eighty feet feasting on all types of unsuspecting prey.

We would rig ourselves with open face Penn saltwater reels attached to seven foot Fenwick graphite fishing poles. The reels would be have lead core line to not only with stand the fight with the shark, but to consistently deal with snags along the bottom. When the bridge was build, much debris was just dropped into the water.

On one particular calm November Sunday the Sea Raider headed out of it's berth at South Beach Harbor for the short ride to the north tower for some exciting shark fishing. While fishing at the spot one has to be cautious of the shipping and pleasure boat traffic as well.

This type of fishing always requires two people. One person must always be at the helm. The tides move so fast that it is impossible to anchor or relax with the boating traffic. The other drops his line in the water with either live or dead bait. Hardware is an option, and we found that many lures that we used in Laredo, Mexico got the seven gills attention.

As my best friend Captain Les was at the wheel, I had a huge strike, the line was

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