Monterey Bay anglers enjoyed a few days of good weather and good fishing over the weekend. Conditions deteriorated during the week, however. Strong gusty winds combined with a powerful south swell called for small craft advisories up and down the coast for most of the week. Besides being uncomfortable, and sometimes dangerous, the swell tends to put fish off the bite. Anglers persevered, though and a few nice catches were recorded despite the poor conditions.

Go Fish Santa Cruz Charters had a great day Sunday. Captain Jim Rubin reported, “Today we fished and caught a variety of rock cod. The water was flat perfect.” Stagnaro’s Sport Fishing is sending their new boat Legacy up to the Ano Nuevo area on full day trips. Both Saturday and Sunday they did well, according to Skipper Chris Victorino. “On Saturday seven-hour trip we fished up the coast to Ano Nuevo Island, yielding 3/4 limits QUALITY rock fish and lingcod. On Sunday Legacy had 3/4 limits and lings for 25 fishing. We fished the New Years Island area. We had a mix of great quality browns, reds, coppers, and schoolie rockfish.”

In Monterey, Chris’ Fishing Trips is still going south around the Point Pinos corner and cashing in on lingcod. While counting only half-limits of rockfish for Thursday’s trip, anglers aboard the Check Mate caught full limits of lingcod (45) for their efforts. We have received few reports of halibut caught in the Monterey area, but Santa Cruz provided more than a few before the swell kicked in. Austin Sprague from Aptos hooked three and landed one off the West Cliff kelp last weekend, and Todd Fraser from Bayside Marine fielded reports of flatties caught near the Mile Buoy. One nice halibut was caught last Saturday by one of the rental skiffs fishing near the SC3 Buoy. When this south swell dies down again, we are sure to see the halibut numbers jump.

Salmon fishing remains consistent, if a bit slow. There seems to be a resident batch of fish in the bay, but they are moving around as well as staying deep. Catches were recorded near Moss Landing, Pajaro, the Soquel Hole and increasingly off Santa Cruz’ north coast from Natural Bridges to Four-Mile Beach. These are a medium grade of fish ranging from eight to 17 pounds.

Surfcasters are still doing well catching striped bass with a variety of lures. Surface poppers and HairRaisers seem to be the most productive, and the beaches south of Rio Del Mar the preferred destination. Any and all of our Monterey Bay beaches can hold barred surfperch at this time. They may be small fish, but they are a blast to catch as well as being reliable.