Happy New Year, and welcome to 2016. Be sure to secure a new 2016 fishing license before taking that rod and reel out. Rockfish and lingcod season is over as of today, and we presume will open again in May. Salmon season should open on the first Saturday of April. In the meantime, charter boats from Monterey and Santa Cruz will be running wintertime trips for sand dabs and mackerel, and surfcasters will be prowling the beaches in search of feisty surfperch.

Fishing was actually pretty good during these last weeks of the year. In Santa Cruz, Bayside Marine owner Todd Frazier remarked, “The fishing was great this weekend for rockfish and lingcod near the local rock piles. There were nice blues and blacks caught near Natural Bridges. The wind and swells were down making for good conditions. The high tide in the morning made the harbor easy to get in and out of unless you stayed out too late.”

Santa Cruz Harbor crews are working diligently to clear the shoaling at the Harbor mouth. While they have made progress in the past week, the channel entrance is still shallow. Paying close attention to the tide and swell is a must for anyone planning to boat from the harbor right now. Up to date info is available directly from the Harbor at (831) 475-6161.

The Monterey area also provided good fishing in this final week of 2015. Aviv Ben-Dashan from The Kayak Connection took a couple friends out on fishing kayaks near Carmel Beach for some big returns last Sunday. Ben-Dashan reported, “We landed (hooked) over 40 ling and countless rockfish and a few bonito. Epic day. Aaron landed his ‘personal best’ ling just under 13 pounds!” It is interesting that there are still some bonito around. Carmel Bay is an obvious location to look for bonito, and a few were caught by anglers trolling Rapalas last week off Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz, according to Todd Frazier.

Rain is in the forecast for next week, and high tide will progress through the morning hours. Good new for surfcasters as the perch seem to prefer a cloud cover, and high tides bring the fish in closer to the beach. Time to start practicing for the Annual Sand Crab Classic Perch Derby. Entries are available at www.sandcrabclassic.com starting today.