The weather was fairly cooperative this week for anglers who fished both sides of Monterey Bay with good results.

On Sunday, Todd Fraser from Bayside Marine headed south towards Monterey/Carmel area. "It was like a lake all the way across the Bay," Fraser says. "We ended up with 50 Rockfish and 3 nice Lingcod working 70-120 feet of water." A number of Santa Cruz boats are making the trip across the Bay for more productive fishing. A few, according to Fraser, are going as far as the Big Sur area to load up on big olives, vermillion and lingcod.

Fishing on the local reefs is improving, says Ken Stagnaro, skipper of Stagnaro Sportfishing's Velocity. "We had beautiful weather and a beautiful evening on our Sunday twilight trip," Stagnaro recounted. The 17 clients aboard returned to the harbor with half-limits of rockfish from the reefs off West Cliff. "The local reefs are looking a little better than they have been. They were empty a couple weeks ago, but now they are showing some fish grouping up." On Saturday, Stagnaro took the Velocity to the South Bay, where his 33 clients found limits of olive and yellowtail rockfish with some big reds in the mix.

For local fishing, Capitola might be the place this week. "We are still seeing halibut come in on the wharf," Said Ed Burrell at Capitola Boat and Bait. Like last week, the flatties are mostly undersized, but there have been "a couple keepers" according to Burrell. Anglers are fishing close to the beach, and using live bait for the best halibut results. Perch fishing was slow on the wharf this week, says Burrell, but longtime local Mike Burkett managed to land an 18-pound striper using a live anchovy flylined from a spot near the bait shop. Burrell was unable to repeat his White Sea Bass catch from last week, though he received reports of sea bass chasing big bait balls from the Cement Ship to the Manresa area. Skiffs from the wharf are still doing pretty well for rockfish, lingcod, a few halibut, and the occasional cabezone working the local Capitola reefs.