And worse and more powerful things have happened. No rain and too much rain, or indifference and meaning, just the grand act of bait-to-hook-to-water-to-nothing.

Or Red Rock itself - a pound of magnesium weathering under brush, and all the brush is poison oak, and the birds are all imbeciles, strung out on the pebble beach and begging a chance.

And he waves.

Good Christ.

He says, "Twenty feet. Like a blanket, they're all over here."

While you watch and you fish and you follow, hoping something might happen.

Until the sun crawls the hills and climbs into the gray. Until the currents take the boat and the December plants take the island, until the birds give up begging and come flapping about to gather souls.

And you never did think of what to say.

It's easy to like Jay Lopes. He has a charter boat. He fishes when he has business and even when he doesn't. He knows the delta and lower Suisun Bay, knows S.F. Bay, knows quite a lot, and he's happy for all of it. He has been a licensed skipper for four years, now that he's 23.

Most of December and all of November, Lopes had a fine spot to himself back in Little Cut. He fished it often with his clients and there hardly was a day they didn't land three sturgeon and miss plenty more. Two weeks ago, his group pulled seven diamondbacks from that piece of water, three keepers between 46 1/2 and 54 inches, an oversize fish of 80 inches and three shakers.

He had it to himself, Lopes said, until another charter-boat captain finally found him there and put the word out to the Internet-fishing world. And that was that, and Lopes was fine with it, partly because he got credit for finding the spot but mostly because the cold and big tides had killed the action there, anyway. (The fish were down in 25 to 40 feet of murk, bit only with the incoming tide, strongly favored ghost shrimp.)

Now he's looking for the next spot. And for some business, like most everyone else.

A couple of boats are working, though.

Barry Canevaro had a charter Wednesday and mentioned that the slough water had warmed some, to maybe 49 degrees.

He was after striped bass, after having spent the weekend not catching sturgeon - at the Mothball Fleet and Suisun Slough and off Antioch and Pittsburg and all over (same reasons, he said, jumbo tide and cold).

So he's back to fishing bass. Since Monday, he has averaged a half-dozen fish a trip, working back in Montezuma, Nurse and Suisun sloughs and offering butterflied shad.

All quality fish, too, with the smallest about 8 pounds and the largest right at 16.

The better fishing, he said, happens with the outgoing tide, but he's gotten some with the flood, as well.

Charter-boat skip Steve Talmadge has made two trips since repowering his boat, swapping a 400-horse power Detroit 6V92 for a 500-hp Cummings QFC 8.3, or, as the captain said, "going from a pig to something relatively smog-free." Or something. He also went from a top speed of 14 knots to 24 knots.

But fishing ... Talmadge was out Sunday and Monday. The first day he worked the shallow water, from the sandbar behind Buoy 2 and down toward the Glomar buoys - for a total catch of two sturgeon, both shakers, and seven bass, only one of which was a keeper, at 23 inches. Each and all bit on ghost shrimp. The bullhead Talmadge cast out was ignored.

Monday, he looked for deeper water and found fish near the Benicia Bridge, at the edge of shipping channel. His group fished the last three hours of the outgo and they landed a keeper sturgeon of 53 inches. They also missed two chances. Again, the fish all bit on ghost shrimp on a single-hook rig. And, again, the bullhead was ignored.

Talmadge was heading out again Wednesday night, at 5 p.m., to fish the outgo until midnight, and then the start of the flood, until about 2 a.m. He planned to try the same edge of the shipping channel, east side of Benicia Bridge, and then at the Glomar.

North Bay: Keith Fraser says there are fishermen anchoring near the Pumphouse and some of those fishermen sometimes are catching sturgeon. And that's about as exciting as the report gets, for now. But the water looks right and the month feels right, and if Fraser says there are fish, there probably are. Also, word has it he's one of the few bait dealers with a steady supply of ghost shrimp. Call first, (415) 456-0321.

South Bay: Sole Man skipper Don Franklin offers that the shark fishing is slower than he would like, but that the sturgeon fishing is going well enough to be on the water.

He had a group of three out Monday and they went to the bay off the Oakland Airport, anchored in 15 to 25 feet of bay, and the boys landed a 58-incher and lost another fish at the boat.

There are schools of herring in the deep water, with the largest schools 50 to 55 feet down between A Buoy and the A Frame. As such, Franklin is baiting up with herring fillets.

About herring: Apparently, the commercial netters have been ordered to stop fishing. That's the word, anyway. So some of them are puttering off the S.F. waterfront, readying their gear until given the OK to fish.

Pier and shore: Your better chances for sturgeon look to be Oyster Point Pier and the water immediately in front of Coyote Point. If nothing else, you'll find plenty of company.

South-er Bay: You sort of have to look back to see ahead, in the way that goes, as some of the very best fishing in a very long time took place more than a week ago. Mike Walker and friends, in Walker's boat, left the harbor at Redwood City and motored down to the water between markers 17 and 18, south of the trestle. They fished, lobbing out an offering of herring and grass shrimp, and they boated six sturgeon.

Later, as Walker tells it, two guys came by in a Whaler and held up a couple of sturgeon, said they had done well even farther south, in the shallower water.

Next day, Walker and friends went past the Towers, to where the bay came up to 5 feet deep. They soaked the same baits. They boated nine sturgeon.

No word on how many were kept. But an update from Walker is expected soon.

Next week: steelhead, possible salmon counts and general mayhem. Enjoy the year.

E-mail Brian Hoffman at bhoffman@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle