Local anglers haven’t been bugged by big swells, but the afternoon winds are kind of a nuisance. Still, the mornings are mostly nice, with a little chop on the water but generally very fishable. Some boats from Santa Cruz are even making it up to the Ano Nuevo area to fish the reefs that haven’t been pressured all summer.

Rodney Armstrong from Santa Cruz Coastal Fishing Charters has been working the reefs north of Santa Cruz for his six-pack clients and shared good news on Wednesday. He reported, “Rock fishing remains red hot. Today we went up north and fished rock fish. We had easy limits of quality rock fish, a bunch of short lingcod and one nice halibut.” Fellow Santa Cruz six-pack skipper JT Thomas took his clients north on Sunday for quick limits of red rockfish, a good mix of quality vermilion and canaries. Thomas reported on trips from earlier in the week saying, “Our clients were military here from Hanford. They fished for halibut. We landed five keepers plus two Petrale sole and a few rock fish. The bite continues to be hot. ” the big charter boats were all fishing for rock cod this week.    Chris’ Fishing Trips in Monterey reported limits for every trip but one on the Check Mate, Caroline and Star of Monterey, while in Santa Cruz, Stagnaro’s Sportfishing limits last Wednesday and near-limits of big rock cod for Friday’s seven-hour trip.

Striped bass remain elusive in Monterey Bay. We received a couple reports this week from surfcasters who found a striper or two from the mid-bay beaches. The flat wave conditions and warming water are bringing halibut in very shallow though. Quite a few flatties were reported caught this week from area beaches by surfcasters using KastMasters, Lucky Craft LC 110s, swimbaits, and drop-shot rigged white flukes. Barred surf perch is very good with 20 to 30-fish outings not unusual. Most of the perch are released, of course, though anglers can keep 10 per day with a maximum of five for any one species. If you have a big surf rod and don’t mind sitting around for a few hours at a time, there are also leopard sharks and bat rays that will eat whole squid or anchovies close in the shallow waters of protected coves around the bay. Waiting around might be boring, but when one of these big fish takes your bait get ready to run down the beach as your line peels out.