The weather was not very cooperative this week, which slowed fishing down somewhat. Despite high winds and a persistent swell, a number of anglers managed to get out and find the fish, both inshore as well as offshore. This weekend looks like more of the same, with a NOAA forecast of "moderate to strong NW winds" over our area. This translates to 30-knot winds offshore, and five-15 knots along the coast. Combined with an eight-second seven-foot swell offshore, we can rule out tuna fishing for the weekend. The inshore swell may be as high as six feet, which suggest caution even if fishing locally.

Good news is the bite is still "on" within the Monterey Bay. Ed Burrell at Capitola Boat and Bait says mornings are the time to catch sardines from the wharf. The bait balls tend to move out later in the day. There are still plenty of sardines to be caught, and they make fantastic bait for stripers, halibut and rockfish. A number of halibut and stripers were caught from the Capitola Wharf this week using the live sardines. Anglers renting skiffs or launching private boats from the Wharf are catching stripers, rockfish, lingcod and halibut from six-23 pounds fishing the local reefs near Capitola and Pleasure Point. One skiff brought in a barred sand bass this week, which is a southern California fish. Hopefully we will see some more exotics as we move into Fall, and the water continues to warm.

Captain Jimmy Charters fished the West Cliff area on Wednesday and had no problems finding limits of rockfish for his clients. " We caught more of those big blacks and jumbo olives. We even caught a bunch of Bocaccio, though none made the minimum 12 inch size limit," Skipper Jim Rubin reports. He also kept two halibut up to 12 pounds, and released four undersized fatties on the trip. Gerry Brookes fished the same area on Saturday with a charter of die-hard halibut hunters. Conditions were "lumpy" according to Brookes, but the anglers managed to land two big halibut weighing 22 and 31 pounds respectively.

Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine has his fingers crossed, waiting for the weather to subside for offshore fishing. Last weekend was too windy and choppy and the coming weekend looks the same. The best day for tuna this week was Tuesday. Boats from Santa Cruz fished the Sur Canyon area, and with scores of 12-40 fish per boat, according to Fraser.