No party boats are known to have ventured to the albacore grounds Wednesday. Which is fine. The skiff fishers, brave souls all, left from Pillar Point and made the run to the Pioneer Seamount, which arrives nearly due west from harbor only after you've put a half-hundred miles under the boat.

The boats ran and they gathered, they trolled and stopped and threw iron and swimbaits and jigs, and all the news that reached the dock is that 10 longfins is what it took to earn the crown of highliner for the day. No spectacular numbers, by any stretch, but you get the sense, more than ever, that anyone who still owns a boat is thrilled enough just to make the day.

Go back a week, and the big boat Tigerfish motored from Half Moon Bay and made Pioneer Canyon. The weather and water were right enough, and the cold-water tuna came up. The boat got them right off on the troll, then on the slide and on bait. There were seven anglers, in all, and they boated 35 fish. And it should have been 50, Capt. Allen Chin said, if they hadn't lost so many. Weather pending, the next ride out for the Tigerfish is a week from today. If you can't wait that long, or don't exactly trust that the weather will hold, the New Salmon Queen out of Emeryville is running Friday. Info: Tigerfish, (650) 455-9599; New Salmon Queen, (510) 654-6040.

More ocean:

With the wind down and the southerly roll fading, some of the boats are back to rockfishing. From Pillar Point on Wednesday, Bob Ingles' Queen of Hearts took a full load of 36 anglers. The boat jogged its way south to Pescadero, where the water has gone from that wind-whipped green to something closer to pellucid, if ever there was. They worked everything they had, swimbaits and shrimp flies and chrome bars, and everything worked. For the day, the anglers put in 36 limits of black, blue and brown rockfish, along with a lingcod and cabezon. If the weather stays fine, Ingles expects that the fishing only will get better. ... Hardly any bait to see at Pescadero, but there were some spots of sardine off Three Rocks and Martins Beach. Back at harbor, though, the marina is fairly loaded with sardine and even some jacksmelt.

The Tigerfish spent Saturday fishing around the main Farallon Island. The water had cooled some, to 56 degrees, cleared some, and the rockfish were willing. The trip was good for 33 limits of rockfish and eight lings to 13 pounds. Quality rockfish, too, with a heavy showing of brown and copper cod. ... Chin's Farallones observations: Very little bait, but for small gatherings of krill. No whales seen, nor any other mammals, excepting for the red-eyed ones on the boat sipping a beer at 6:30 in the morn.

Chin was chartered by a Moss Landing research institute Wednesday. With permission, and with scientists on board, he said he fished the closed-to-fishing water at Aņo Nuevo, where he and crew tagged and released rockfish. He'll be back out today to sample the so-called open water, where the biologists will tag, release and compare rockfish numbers between the respective areas.

Into the bay:

The big tides are gone. In their place, a meek rise and fall, which suits fishing interests fine. Past three trips over the last three days, the Berkeley big boat Cal Dawn, for one, has put in 114 halibut. Monday and Tuesday, the boat fished the South Bay, very near to the entrance to Oakland Harbor, and the spot gave up 90 halibut to the Cal Dawn. Wednesday, for a reason Capt. James Smith neither offered nor implied, the boat went right to Angel Island, west side, and stayed there to drift all through the day. Bass have been scarce for more than a week now. But they appeared off Angel Island on Wednesday. The Cal Dawn finished with 46 fish, split between linesides and halibut. The bass went to 14 pounds, flatfish to 24. Overall, Smith called the grade of fish mixed. Forgot to mention that while fishing in front of Oakland Harbor, the CD hooked but didn't quite land a thresher shark of 5 feet. This two weeks after landing eight, including a 10-footer, outside the Gate, at the North Bar.

The Lovely Martha was chartered again Wednesday by the San Francisco Police Youth Fishing Program. The boat had 14 kids out for a day of fishing. First stop was off Alameda Rockwall. Nothing there, so the Lovely Martha moved to Angel Island. Total score for a half-day of fishing: 20 halibut to 28 pounds, five bass and a leopard shark that weighed better than 20 pounds. Lunch, boat owner Frank Rescino said, was donated by a bail-bond business.

Good one here, too: The New Easy Rider made the morning stop at Angel Island, immediately got into bass, and had 12 limits in little more than an hour of drifting and fishing. After that, the boat nosed out the Gate, worked the North Bar and Fort Cronkhite, and was at dock early with limits of halibut, 36 fish.

East Bay lakes:

Los Vaqueros Reservoir, there by Livermore, looks good, in that it's 87 percent full, but there isn't too much good to say about the fishing. The lake was stocked Monday with 1,200 pounds of trout. That day and the next, the shoreliners pulled some of the dim hatchery rainbows from South Cove. After Tuesday, the fishing fell off. Not much to report, either, in the way of black bass, striped bass or even catfish. ... Slightly better bet is nearby Lake Del Valle, where anglers fishing from boats are pulling a few trout from where the water deepens in the Narrows and goes deeper still toward the dam. What you need is water 30 to 40 feet deep. From there, PowerBait generally is the bait of choice. The black bass fishing is slow, with even the best happy to get three to five a day, with most of the bass caught on a topwater offering early or late, or on plastics during the burn of the day. There are striped bass, as well, and these are caught on larger topwater offerings, or trolling something that looks like a trout through the deep water. More casually, and far more productively, there are catfish, which don't often pass up, say, a chunk of mackerel or chicken liver tossed toward the outside edge of weed beds.