May is upon us. Summer is around the corner. Before we dive pell-mell into the fracas, here's some stuff of interest... First off, I've got a Mega Low Tide Tour in HMB on May 28th. This is a -1.5 tide, and honestly, it's gonna be awesome. These big minus tides have been unbelievable lately. So, if you've been holding out on doing my HMB "Mega Tour" this is the one you want to do. Remember to wear boots and wake up early it's at 07:00 (just think - we will have the whole harbor to ourselves!) Okay, I didn't even... Continue reading

Unreal as it may seem. After a ten year hiatus, eulachon (aka: candlefish, hooligan, oolichon) have suddenly started showing up in some Coastal rivers to the north of California. Check out any of these articles: Sandy River The Oregonian The British Columbian For those who don't remember my previous obsession with this species here's a post culled from the archives of The Monkeyface News: Candlefish (2009) Deep in his underground cavern beneath the wooded glades of San Francisco, fresh from his latest puppet triumph, Lombard of the Intertidal sits and obsesses about the decline of the osmerid clan. As I... Continue reading

Holy Shiite! I'm doing a TED Talk in Monterey... okay it's a TEDx talk. And it's tomorrow so I'm not giving you guys much notice. Nevertheless... for those who can't make it... here's the link to live streaming: http://www.tedxmonterey.org/livestream/ Sure would be nice to see a few familiar faces, so if you're down that way, stop in and say hi! Fishwife and I will be singing Shoals of Herring again, to anyone who missed it the first time! Kirk-out Continue reading

R.I.P. Ladies and gentlemen. Smelt Hammer (AKA Mjolnir, Flame Of The North, Smelt Assassin) is gone! Swept out to sea last night by a rogue wave. (A wave that almost took me with it). No doubt this, the greatest of all my home made fishing implements, (my pride and joy, really) will wash up somewhere on the coast, near Pacifica. I am publishing these pix in hopes that maybe, someday, if one of my loyal MFN readers sees someone using this handsome and distinctive net they give me a call. There is of course the possibility that it is bound... Continue reading

Hello everyone and welcome to your seaforager coastal update for April 2013. {Apologies to the MFN regulars I'm posting this here while I revamp the Seaforager site} First things first. I'm a daddy! On 3/1/13 the fishwife gave birth to a beautiful 9 pound baby boy: Django Ray Lombard. The eels quake with fear. In addition to this wonderful news, I should point out that I have Mega Low Tide tours in HMB on the following dates: Tomorrow (Tuesday) April 2nd 8:00am (discount price if you e-mail me: mawson@gmail.com) Tuesday April 30th, 7:30am Tuesday May 28th, 7:30am Go to: Mega... Continue reading

Geneva 1864 Sleep deprivation. Diaper duty. Sleep deprivation. Diaper duty. Sleep deprivation. This formula should be covered under the Geneva Convention as a form of torture. Yikes.... where was I? Geneva Convention... Baby D. evidently doesn't give a damn about the Geneva Convention. And where in the hell did he get these lungs? (Tee hee) Poseidon have mercy! We've got a little Pavarroti on our hands. Can't wait to start him on tuba lessons. Although he seems to be a sort of 11 pound, 24 inch tuba all on his own... if you get my drift. Smelt moon rising. Moon... Continue reading

A pisces of course. Well... I'm trying to avoid the usual gushing pronouncements of early (sleepless) fatherhood, but it's difficult. "Camilladilla" Lombard, (aka: "the fishwife"), after a grueling 13 hour labor in which she heroically refused any and all pain killers, gave birth, naturally, to a 9.1 pound lunker, who will heretofore answer to the name of Django Ray Lombard. Yes, the "D" is silent. I will state this for the record: the lad has a pair of lungs on him that could really only be matched by his tuba blowin, sea chanty singin', fish tale spinnin' old man. His... Continue reading

Herring on the barbie. All in all a great season. Can't wait till next year. Well it's like this... although the herring are done spawning... it seems likely that the fishwife could spawn at any moment now. We're already four days late. So I'm putting this up here between re- arranging furniture and putting strollers and car seats together... February Okay. So hopefully everyone saw the 7x7 article and the two pieces in The Chronicle. Hit the links if you missed 'em. More stuff like that coming up in March. Trying to figure out when I can do another locally... Continue reading

The interesting thing here is not that I can, in fact, hit the high note in this song :) it's that the fishwife can play so effortlessly with 39 weeks of junior in her belly! Thanks to Michael for posting this!!! And thanks to everyone for coming out to the event, and to John Foss and Heather and everyone else who contributed. 10 days and counting... Tours all weekend... Continue reading

(Sorry babe, couldn't find a blonde pregger mermaid) Well... I'm sorry I've been so lax in posting but there's a lot going on at chez Lombard. Main thing right now is the fishwife. We're due on Feb 25... So we're both counting down to that right now. I have been assured by the aforementioned FW that I am ok to resume tours shortly after the 25th and will notify the good peeps on my list of any late season herring runs. Stay tuned... K-out Continue reading

Herring Fest 2013 Kind of hoping some day we can get this dialed in like NY: NY Herring Fest. The Cass Marina in Sausalito is sponsoring the first ever SF Bay Herring Festival on Feb 9th. I will be stopping off there briefly to sing "Shoals of Herring" with the fishwife and to read a short story before heading to the big event at La Trappe. The fishwife wants me to mention this media stuff, and who am I to resist the will of a 9 months pregnant lady? So... It was a busy month media-wise... I'm in yesterday's Chronicle.... Continue reading

Totally forgot about this video I did with the Mavea Water Filter people this past August. They just posted it. Thought it came out kind of cool so I'm posting it here. Glad I didn't make any ugly throws. Have to admit, despite the good times with herring and perch of late, it's got me pining for summer smelt runs... anyway here it is: Kind of funny. The beach was loaded with fishermen that day but it looks like I'm all alone out there. Bunch of guys teased me afterwards. Kinda funny having a camera crew following me into the... Continue reading

Interpret this as you will Continue reading

Herring in McCovey Cove Jan 2013 Ummm... kind of embarrassed by this one. But I'm stepping forward to excuse my erratum on the basis of math anxiety. Or maybe just math ineptitude. The following is the kind of question that led me to play hooky from school when I should've been learning math: If the commercial herring fleet is allowed to fish 5 percent of the estimated spawning biomass in SF Bay, or 2,000 tons, what is the estimated spawning biomass? Duh. Somehow in figuring this out I came up with the ridiculous figure of 400,000 tons. And have been... Continue reading

And lo: the fish came unto the cove for four days and four nights. And there were many. And the men from Chinatown threw countless nets upon them. And lo: the fish kept coming. And coming. And coming. And lo: they came. And the water turned white with their coming. And the white men in the big boats pulled their long nets and filled their holds. And back onshore, the Samoans were well represented. And so too the Greeks and Filipinos. And so too the residents of the fancy new Mission Bay housing complex {who knew nothing of these, their... Continue reading

Hi everybody! First things first. My next Mega Low Tide Clam tour in HMB is Feb 7th at 13:15 (the one in January is now sold out). Click here for reservations. Also I am going to be hosting a crazy seafood dinner at La Trappe restaurant on Feb 9th. That's during beer week folks. So the price of admission will include beer. And if you are in any way into beer, La Trappe (with it's trappist Belgian dungeon full of insane brews) is the place you need to go! They haven't posted the schedule yet, but they will shortly, so... Continue reading

Herring spawning grounds south bay. Went down to the F&G Commission meeting in Monterey yesterday (May 23). First one of these I've ever attended. I was there in hopes of pushing my "cast net herring agenda" forward. Ran into a little problem though: the glacial time frames of the bureaucracy. Even if the higher ups agree to look into my suggestions, they evidently would not be able to do anything until 2014. Bummer. Nevertheless... here's the letter I submitted to the commission: My name is Kirk Lombard. I am a former fisheries observer for the DFG/PSMFC currently working as a... Continue reading

Well. It happened. Had a hard time getting folks to come out there. Maybe this will act as some enticement. Good times. Thanks to Chris from NorCal kayakers for helping out with camera duties. And to my usal cast of eccentrics, Greeks and n'er do wells. Okay... first major spawn south bay winter 2012-13 Kirk-out PS: I will post a YouTube version later in the week. Shoals of Herring from kirk Lombard on Vimeo. Continue reading

"This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang But a whimper." TS Eliot, also somewhat obsessed with armageddon. And lo... the world goes on. In my happy place. Rain coming down--in sheets, buckets, garbage cans. Spent the day yesterday tracing the original coastline of Yerba Buena Cove. The ultimate SF history geek thing to do. The sort of thing everyone tells me I will have no time for once Lombard of the Intertidal Jr. arrives in about two months. So getting my last... Continue reading

The Spinnaker at Spinnaker Point, in the pseudo waterfront town of Sausalito Gawd help me. I just spent half the day driving around Marin County looking for the little guys. Yikes. 40 bucks in gas and 6 dollars in bridge tolls. What am I rich? No. And there's nothing like driving around the Marin county bayfront shoreline for a few hours to remind oneself of this. Looks like some big flocks of birds off Belvedere. One of these days I'm gonna nail a Belvedere herring run. There's one little stretch of accessible shoreline in Belvedere and there's no way they... Continue reading

You know... I don't usually post other people's movies here. But this footage is ridiculous. --Kirk-out Continue reading

The author with a prime example of Lewis' Moonsnail, caught on Mega Low Tide Tour in Nov. First things first: I've got an article in this month's "Fishue" of Meatpaper. The awesome magazine with the carnivorous ethos! Mega Low Tide Clam/Mussel Tours: Dec 11th, Dec 26th Inner City Tours: All month In addition I will be offering special discounted ticket prices for the formerly-pagan-fertility-ritual- season, and am unlikely to do it again any time soon! Go here to pick a tour or buy one as a gift: Seaforager.com/tours Herring It's official, the herring are here. And yet despite the fact... Continue reading

{If you're here for Champion de la Banana's curbside sturgeon notochord removal video, scroll down to the entry for Nov 30 2012} Okay. It's official. The first herring run of winter 2011-12 occurred on Nov 29th a mile from where I was filming Champion de la Banana and his sturgeon. Only one person there to witness it and for some reason he chose not to call me till the next day. Thanks dude. I went down yesterday to check for eggs and sure enough, found some light spawn, on the lowest Mastocarpus papillatus. If a tree falls in the woods... Continue reading

{Monkeyface News editorial machine: if you're here for the video scroll to the bottom. The vimeo video is higher quality but may take longer to load} Champion's white sturgeon, thanks to Arturo for sending me this photo. Well, I was just sitting down to write another post about the advantages of limpets and mudsuckers (yawn yawn) when the phone rang. Champion de la Banana, (scroll down after you hit the link) who doubles as Monkeyface field operative and herring scout #007, was on the line. Being that everyone is talking about birds, sea lions, and big schools of clupeids loaded... Continue reading

Sort of riffing on the Bukowski line from Bar Fly here. You know where Mickey Rourke says of the Frank Stalone bartender character: that guy symbolizes everything that disgusts me... unoriginal macho energy. Well I'm going to go out on a limb here and state for the record that the late Hector "Macho" Camacho, for all his crimes--and they were many--did not frequently dip his water bottle into the pool of "unoriginal macho energy." Lunatic, drug addled macho energy? Sure. Homo-erotic male dominance displays featuring Village People inspired wardrobe and a Pee Wee herman spit curl? Yes. Blood curdling feats... Continue reading