Posted on 01/09/2003 7:42:19 PM PST by Howlin
Unable to retrieve today; may be a body.
My thoughts exactly.
There is some questioning his fishing late in the day and not catching anything. You generally fish the bay on a incoming tide which started at 9:30 I beleive and catching one sturgeon in your life is like that one Bull Elk you might get for the average hunter.
#2 - I wonder if she was wrapped in the blue tarp which the dogs hit on in the Bay? That might explain why the police went back there.
#3 - I don't know how things drift in the Bay, but is this "downstream" so to speak from the tarp?
Catching Sturgeon is not that difficult. Right bait, right spot, right tide...on a clearing water after a storm...and in late spring, as the snow pack runoff clears up...
Here is a useful tip: If you are fishing a "bite" out anywhere on the "flats" [5 to 15 ft deep], keep in mind that smell and slick are king. You need to establish a consistent bait trail on the bottom. Pull in about 2-300 yards below a big party boat that has lots of hooks out. And/Or...get a small clean paint sample can at the paint shop. Punch it full of holes. Throw in a few 8 oz lead balls and pack the can full of good smelly bait. Leave enough room for the balls to roll around a bit. Clip that can to anchor chain/rope juncture on your boat. As the boat pulls in the current and waves...the can will pump out sweet goodness slick...works best in 5 to 30 feet of water.
Anyone who "wants" to catch a sturgeon could.
but even so, using his stat, your chance of being murdered by a family member, friend, or business associate is still a lofty 60%.
Police may have located a body in their search of the Berkeley Marina for a missing Modesto woman, but they can't know for sure until they return to the water, probably Saturday, officials said Thursday.
Bad weather and fatigue forced them to leave the water Thursday, after a sophisticated sonar detected what could be a body lying at the bottom of the fairly shallow marina, said Modesto police Sgt. Ron Cloward.
More bad weather Friday was likely to delay the search another day.
``I'd love to put somebody in there (Friday),'' said Cloward, who is leading the massive hunt for 27-year-old Laci Peterson, who disappeared on Christmas Eve, eight months pregnant with a boy. Cloward expressed frustration at the wait.
``Does it make you hopeful you can bring some closure? Yes. Does it make you hopeful that there's a body down there? No.''
Thursday was the third time Modesto police had returned to the marina over the past week in their search for Peterson. For the first time, they used a sophisticated ``side scan'' sonar system that creates computer models of objects below the water's surface.
Cloward said the sonar device picked up the possible body ``way out'' in the marina. As the weather worsened Thursday, divers battled stiff currents. Weather forecasts paint Saturday as the earliest day to resume the dive, Cloward said. He said leaders of the marina search were not concerned about the object floating away.
Peterson's husband, Scott Peterson, told police he went fishing alone at the marina on the day of his wife's disappearance, leaving at 9:30 a.m. and returning in late afternoon to find her gone. While police have not named him a suspect, they have not ruled him out.
On Saturday, search dogs seemed to sniff out something around Cesar Chavez Park at the marina. About the same time, police pulled a blue tarp out of the marina waters. The tarp remains in Modesto for testing, and police would not say whether it held significance in the case.
Earlier Thursday, Cloward said the repeated search efforts at the marina did not reflect any added information, only diligence.
``We want to completely know that when we drive out of the area, we've searched it all,'' he said.
Authorities said they have failed to find any solid witnesses at the marina who may have seen Scott Peterson, his bronze Ford F150 pickup and his 14-foot Gamefisher aluminum skiff. Police divers also ended a search Thursday of Lake Tulloch, a popular fishing spot east of Modesto.
Indeed, while police pledged to keep hunting for Laci Peterson in the rural byways and waterways of several counties surrounding Stanislaus, they admitted to having few leads in the widely publicized case, despite more than 2,600 calls to a tip line.
``It's unusual. It's not normal to not have leads,'' said Modesto police Detective Doug Ridenour. ``But that's where we're at.''
Calls have come in from as far as Nova Scotia and Australia, with 300 claiming psychic knowledge of Peterson's whereabouts. Police have not looked to psychics for help.
Since Peterson's disappearance, hundreds of volunteers, dozens of officers from several police agencies and a cadre of bloodhounds and water-trained, corpse-sniffing dogs have aided in the search.
Even if it IS a body!
Do you think that if Scott had actually disposed of a body in a place, he would have told police that is where he was? He would have said every where else on earth, in any OTHER direction!
PS Admin Mod, please change heading to say "SF Bay," not lake, the present title is very misleading, the claim is the object is in the saltwater Bay near Berkeley.
I am glad to see someone here that has some exprerience and not making things up. I doubt that Scott had that much experience which you only get from fishermen that have been there and done that. Thanks.
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