Winds were a bit fickle this week, which limited saltwater fishing time for many anglers. Most mornings were very fishable however, and some boaters are doing well fishing just before sunset.

Charter operations on Monterey Bay continue to target rockfish and lingcod for the most part. Chris’ Fishing Trips launch from Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey. This week owner Chris Arcoleo reported limits or near-limits of rockfish for trips on the Caroline and Check Mate and full limits of lingcod on all trips. Chris’ has been relying on live bait all season to continue their record of ling cod limits.

Carol Jones from Kahuna Sportfishing sent the boat down to Point Sur on Wednesday. By all accounts, the trip was a great success. Jones reported, “Great weather and great fishing today down the coast. Twenty-five lingcod up to 18 pounds and limits of nice rockfish including vermillion and coppers for 17 anglers.”

In Santa Cruz, Tom Dolan on the Mega-Bite had good news to share about fishing the local reefs. Regarding Saturday’s trip Dolan said,” A bit of wind today so we elected to stay closer to Santa Cruz rather than go all the way to Jurassic Park (North Coast). Good choice too. We hammered out limits of quality copper, canary, brown, olive, blue, black and red pacific snapper and some really nice lingcod.”

With salmon season closed, and albacore reports nonexistent, the high-liner prey in the bay is halibut. It is turning out to be a fairly good season for the big flatfish, despite what feels like a late start. The Monterey area has seen quite a few flatties caught just off Fisherman’s Wharf by the sailboat moorage, along DelMonte Beach past the “Hotel” and on up towards Marina. Santa Cruz and Capitola remain productive for good-sized halibut in 30 to 70 feet of water. The best tactic seems to fish near the reefs. Even the West Cliff and North Coast halibut spots are starting to spark with fish being caught just outside of the kelp beds near Mitchell’s Cove, Four-Mile Beach and Davenport.

Anglers need not head to deep waters for big flatfish. In an astonishing achievement this week, Santa Cruz native Juan Aguilar hooked and landed a stupendous halibut from the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. While not getting an official weight, the halibut measured 44 inches long, and 17 inches across. Our estimate would put this fish well above 30 pounds. And, he caught it using a live anchovy on six-pound test mainline with a ten-pound leader! “It took an hour to bring it to the net. The fish had me running up and down the wharf. It was so heavy I could barely pick it up,” Aguilar said proudly.