Offshore tuna anglers are keeping a close eye on weather reports for the coming week. The weekend reports indicate winds will be building on the bluefin ground ten miles offshore, with a forecast of 15 knots and a building swell to six or seven feet. Monday’s forecast is worse, predicting winds to 25 knots. Early mornings may be fishable, but caution is advised.

The run of Bluefin tuna continued this week much as it has for the previous three. Anglers have reported zero to six tuna boated, with many more “zeros” than catches. Skipper Tom Joseph has fished nearly every day on his four-pack charter boat Sara Bella. Joseph is slow- trolling live mackerel on the surface, and using his downriggers to bracket the water column from 50 to 150 feet down.

On Tuesday, Joseph reported, “Friday the 23rd our party boated three blue fin from 44-53 pounds. Today’s fish came deep. It’s hit or miss, no bluefin at all on Wednesday. Just seven sharks that cut our lines. I’ve been fishing every day almost, and we’ve got 18 bluefin tuna on the Sara Bella this month, ranging from 35-65 pounds.”

Most private boaters are taking multiple trips to the canyon areas about 10 miles offshore from Davenport before hooking up with one or two of the big powerful tuna. Captain Jack Teresi on the Nancy Leigh had three hookups Wednesday, and managed to bring one fish over the rail. Persistence is a key in taking advantage of this unusual opportunity of big tuna relatively close to port. Old salts consider a Monterey Bay bluefin bite like this to be a “once in 25-year” event.

Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine keeps track of the bluefin bite, and adds a number of tuna were caught this week off Point Pinos in Monterey. Schools of bonito are also swinging through the Monterey Harbor area, as well as near Pajaro Beach and Natural Bridges. As with bluefin hunting, bonito anglers look for surface activity and birds or dolphins feeding that might indicate a bonito school.

A few commercial squid boats have been netting squid from Five-Mile Beach up towards Davenport. Some lucky anglers have worked this area for an occasional white sea bass, using squid or live mackerel as bait.

And, the rockcod bite remains consistently good all around the Bay. Todd Arcaleo at Chris’ Fishing Trips reported rockcod limits for nearly every trip last week, and averaged 20 lings on each trip as well. Stagnaro’s Sportfishing in Santa Cruz reports similar results. “Our last all-day cod trip went north. We caught limits of great quality blues and blacks, six lings up to 28 pounds and quite a few big reds and a nice cabezone.” Stagnaro’s six pack boat Sea Stag VI is available for bonito trips, and will start rockfish/Dungeness crab combo trips on opening weekend, November 7th.