“You should have been here yesterday.” So goes the famous quote from Bruce Brown’s original Endless Summer, wherein the traveling surfers always heard about the fantastic waves but were always just one day late. We finally had a very good day of salmon fishing in Monterey Bay this season. On Sunday most boats caught fish, and those in the know had easy limits as early as 7:30 am. Commercial salmon anglers reported up to 70 fish for the day on Sunday.

By Monday the fish had scattered and salmon fishing was slower, but it is always well worth the effort. Captain Jim Rubin from Go Fish Santa Cruz took clients on the Miss Beth out towards the Soquel Hole for fairly decent salmon action on Monday. Rubin reported, ”We fished today for salmon. We caught three and landed one nice king. Water and weather conditions were nice and we expect the same tomorrow. Everyone had a blast.”

We received no reports of salmon fishing from Monterey this week, but Captain Tom Joseph from Fish On Charters did well fishing out of Half Moon Bay both Saturday and Sunday. “We finally were able to get back out chasing salmon after a solid week of bad weather. Not knowing where to start I took a gamble and it paid off. Our charter was rewarded with limits of salmon to 18 pounds and I also got my two fish. It was an awesome day,” Joseph said on Saturday. Sunday saw the Sara Bella with nine fish in the box, according to Joseph. “Fish were eight to 15 pounds. We hooked a lot of fish and lost just as many. A very exciting day.”

Rockfish and lingcod fishing remains steady, but has yet to get really good for the year. Still, the Monterey boats from Randy’s Sportfishing and Chris’ Fishing trips had good reports for the week. On Thursday, the Check Mate averaged ½ limits of rockfish for each client, but scored full limits (45) of lingcod for the 15 anglers aboard. Randy’s Chubasco took 13 anglers out on Sunday. They returned with full limits of rockfish (130), and 10 lings for the boat.

Barred surfperch are getting more scarce, but some big ones are still being caught. Most surfcasters are concentrating on stripers these days. There are still plenty of bass around, all up and down the bay. The central beaches from Zmudowski State Beach to Sand City have been most consistent. And, as predicted, the bass are getting bigger as the season progresses. While anglers struggled a few weeks a go to catch a keeper over 18 inches, many of the striped bass caught this week were well beyond that minimum size. Austin Sprague of Aptos frequents the beaches below the Cement Ship and used a topwater popper for a hefty 13-pounder Wednesday morning while fishing an incoming high tide.