As we count down the days to the rockfish season close, our weather has been less than cooperative. Winds were clocked in the 40 miles per hour range this past week, and the ocean conditions consisted of a big chop over rather large swells. Still, local anglers are ever optimistic, and hope to have some chances soon for the local reef fish, and perhaps even an offshore venture or two.

Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine keeps his finger on the tuna fishing pulse hereabouts. He's hopeful the winds will come down long enough for an access window to the offshore albacore grounds. The warm water is currently 60-90 miles offshore, and should be holding tuna. The weekend forecast calls for relatively light winds on Saturday, but wind speeds will increase for Sunday. Tuna hunters may find success in the Sur Canyon area, or by the 601 weather buoy. Both areas have some promising water temperature breaks.

Quality rockfish are on the bite, according to Skipper Gerry Brookes from Reel Sportfishing. The problem has been "staying on top of them." Brookes took a couple charters out last weekend and managed to find  ? limits for his clients. It wasn't easy, according to Brookes, but the rewards came in the form of big black rockfish, along with a few short lingcod that were released. Rockfish season ends on November 15 this year.

Local angler Aaron Hull from Monterey Bay Kayaks was dismayed last week to find a large number of dead ocean sunfish on Del Monte Beach in Monterey. More commonly known as "mola-mola," ocean sunfish can grow to 10 feet long and weigh more than two tons. Their primary diet is gelatinous zooplankton such as jellyfish and Portuguese man-o-war. Molas are a strange and graceful fish. Usually slow moving and found drifting on the surface, they resemble a giant disc, and are sometimes referred to as the "swimming head."

Hull speculated on the mysterious mola die-off. "A big swell had washed in a ton of kelp and debris," Hull reported. "In amongst the kelp there were at least ten mola-mola per hundred yards, dead on the beach. Most of them were small to medium size (14-20 inches) and had eyes pecked out by gulls. The swell may have pushed the mola on to shore."

Steve Litvin from Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove shed some light on the situation. "Our technical diver found dozens of dead molas littering the reef in 20 meters of water off the Station." Hopkins staff noticed sea lions feeding on the slow-moving sunfish that likely had followed big groups of jellyfish into the area. The sea lions were eating only the fins off the sunfish. Having no air bladder, the finless fish then sank to the bottom, and some washed up on the beach. By all accounts, hundreds of sunfish were likely killed in this incident. Bushnell can also be heard with a live fishing report Friday mornings at 6:45am on KSCO radio 1080 AM. Send your photos, comments or questions to scruzfishing@yahoo.com