Come down a ways, to where the Russian is born from Lake Mendocino and finally widens through Alexander Valley, and you'll find the rain has neither been nor done much, other than make life more difficult for the vineyard workers out there pruning vines. The Russian was held at 120 cfs for what seemed like most of January and the first part of this month. Following Tuesday's showers and more rain Wednesday, the river looked to be topping out at Cloverdale at 225 cfs. At Healdsburg, 250 cfs. Still, to add perspective, the few guides who work the middle stretch of the river, Bob Sparre among them, generally consider the river fishable when it's closer to 800 cfs.

Others: The Trinity has not done much, either way, with the rain, holding at 360 cfs through Douglas City. It might have taken on some color, though, which would be fine with the steelheaders agonizing over skittish fish and light line. ... Back to the coast, Redwood Creek and the Mad River both jumped up nicely, with the former shooting from 300 to nearly 900 cfs and the latter going from 300 to more than 600 cfs.

Brice Dusi was on the main stem Eel on Wednesday, done with his guided trip and returned to his truck and trailer at the put-in, there at the Forks. There had been a steady rain all day. The river had 3 feet of visibility to it when the guide and his group of two started out in the morning, but was clouding up behind them. The two anglers still landed two steelhead, to 8 pounds, and they were happy to have caught any, as that goes. Two days before, Dusi's clients hooked seven and landed four. And now the Eel is out and the South Fork, too, which climbed to nearly 9 feet and 1,300 cfs, with rain still falling. And Dusi, the guide, hardly could have been happier. Said he: "I've been waiting a month to fish in the rain. This just feels normal." He planned to fish either the Smith or Chetco today.

The bays

S.F.: Very slow fishing, from boat, pier, shore, kayak, computer-at-your-desk, however you go at it. The only upside is speculation, and nearly all the speculation being done is centered on when the halibut fishing will start in earnest. Toward that end, Sole-Man skip Don Franklin heard from the Dept. of F&G; that schools of anchovy are in the bay, along with the herring, which still are spawning. If it's true about the anchovy schools, the trollers should be on the water in the next couple of weeks - provided the bay doesn't go completely brown with runoff.

Suisun-delta: Capt. Steve Talmadge worked through the meat of the prime outgoing tides, with four trips between the weekend and early part of the week. That's the good. The not-so-good is that his boat accounted for nothing more than shaker-size sturgeon. Talmadge wrote that he metered and fished Montezuma Slough, clear up to the bridge, and Suisun Slough and Hunter Slough and back to the Benicia Bridge, and just could not locate the big boys and girls.

Proving that the sun shines in different places on the same day, Capt. Barry Canevaro's weekend and Monday were punctuated by sturgeon of 9 feet (Sunday) and 8 feet (Monday), plus a 50-inch keeper and a few striped bass. The 9-footer was caught above the Antioch Bridge, at Buoy 17, in 30 feet of water. The others, including the bass, all came from Montezuma Slough (25 to 30 feet). Everything bit with the incoming tide, on ghost shrimp.

Going back a week, there was a tough day on Jim Smith's Happy Hooker, which runs out of Martinez. The big boat with its small load of anglers worked all over Suisun Bay without much luck in the way of sturgeon. Finally, a guy hooked up. Got what looked like a 60-inch diamondback to the boat. Deckhand lowered the net and started to close the pocket. And a sea lion came out of the gray bay, jumped half way into the net, took the sturgeon in its mouth, and removed its corpulent self from the mesh, with the fish. The old boy has a name, too: Scar Back. Smith is just Smith.

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

This article appeared on page D - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle