One of my non material Christmas gifts to my wife was a trip up our coast from Bodega to Gualala and back with no fly rods.
We did that yesterday.
The seals were working the entrances of the Gualala and the Russian after steelhead. We watched and walked along the Gualala near the entrance and saw no steelhead getting through the gauntlet of seals.
The same scene was repeated at Jenner for the Russian river except that was massive slaughter of the steelhead. Everyone of the fat slobs with flippers were in the 4 entrances/mouths the river had carved in the bar, (a couple of hundred seals live there). It was slaughter time for the seals. Most of the kills were the belly grab and chunked out to eat. They go for the roe. Then the rest of the steelhead is left for the gulls and crabs.
I think that I converted a young couple to “It’s time to kill seals”! They had been at Cassini’s ranch fishing with no luck with a couple of seals working the holes there. When they complained about no fish nor strikes even with roe as their lures, a crusty old fly fisher, (not me) told them to go to Jenner, drive through and pull over on the side of 1 by the cliffs at the mouth of the river to see why. They were appalled at the carnage and slaughter. Neither had caught a steelhead in the last 6 seasons. Now they know why.