We enjoyed some great fishing weather last week. Local anglers scored on rockfish, halibut, lingcod, and the more exotic thresher shark and barracuda. A south swell rolled in since then and the bite slowed somewhat, but the coming weekend looks promising with light winds and a minimal swell along the inshore waters.

Ken Stagnaro from Stagnaro's Sportfishing took the Velocity out twice last Saturday. His early charter netted 17 limits of blues and big olives and they were done by noon, fishing the local reefs. The shorter twilight trip resulted in 160 rockfish caught, mostly reds, yellows and bolinas.

Captain Jimmy took his charter on Saturday to the south side of the bay. The clients enjoyed quick limits of black and blue rockfish as well as more of the jumbo olives that area has been producing this year. Gerry Brookes on the Doble headed north this weekend, and fished above Ano Nuevo. "We had the best ocean conditions I've seen there in a long time. Grease slick all day. The fishing was great, with limits of reds, olives, blacks and blues, and 6 big lingcod."

Despite a strong south swell, good reports came in from Capitola. The rental skiffs caught plenty of rockfish, a few lings and quite a few halibut in the five to eight pound range. A bonus for some lucky anglers in that area was running into a school of barracuda feeding on the plentiful jacksmelt off Pleasure Point. Barracuda can grow to more than four feet long, and are ferocious fighters. The half-dozen or so that Ed Burrell saw last week were mostly in the 30-inch range. Though these fish are quite edible, Burrell notes anglers released many after playing them.

Local anglers are still hopeful for some albacore action this year, but prospects are growing increasingly dim. The good temperature breaks are not developing in the offshore waters. Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine reported one commercial boat caught around 150 of the tuna last week, but that boat was fishing over 150 miles offshore. Of the few private boats out hunting for the longfins this week, only one albacore was reported caught, though a number of jumpers were sighted on that trip.