Despite the giant groundswell rolling through, fishing in the Monterey Bay remained fairly steady this past week, with a variety of species caught. Local anglers are eagerly looking forward to the opening of Dungeness crab season on Saturday, November 6. Skipper Ken Stagnaro reminds us that rockfish season closes on November 15 this year. He will be running the Velocity Friday through Sunday prior to the closing, and adds the fishing is still very good. "We had limits of quality blacks and reds, plus three nice keeper lings and one cabezone." Stagnaro's usually fishes off the North Coast from Natural Bridges up to Davenport, so their fish counts and quality should remain high as the season ends. Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine fielded good rockfishing reports from the Four-Mile Beach area and even a few tales of success from the Mile Buoy reefs this week. Incredibly, the white sea bass bite in Monterey still persists. It's been hit or miss for the seabass, partially due to the recent large swell, which pushed the squid out to deeper water. Some lucky boats are reporting counts of 4-6 fish in the 30-60-pound range from the Lover's Point area. Sadly, a higher percentage of anglers are getting skunked. Jim Rubin from Captain Jimmy Charters will pilot the Becky Ann down to Monterey this weekend and resume the chase for these big, hard-fighting and delicious fish. "You just have to be patient," Rubin says. "We fished all day last week without a bite, and finally got one at 1:30, as we were pulling in our gear. The bite just turns on and off."

Rubin will also be running his first crab combo trip on Sunday. Dungeness season opens this weekend. Crabbers can splash their pots at first light on Saturday. The California Department of Fish and Game claims their survey from last year's season suggests we are in an upswing of the abundance cycle for Dungeness right now, and that may indicate a good season ahead for us. Anglers may keep 10 Dungies per day, with a minimum size of "five and three-quarter inches measured by the shortest distance through the body from edge of shell to edge of shell directly in front of and excluding the points (lateral spines)." Party boat anglers can keep only six Dungeness, and the minimum size is six inches. Ed Burrell is still sending out the skiffs everyday at Capitola Boat and Bait. Rockfish and lingcod are still available on the deeper reefs outside of Capitola and off Soquel Point. Burrell was happy to report one of the dedicated skiff anglers came back with a nice halibut caught on squid from 70 feet of water. He adds the perch bite is picking up, with some redtail perch in the mix along the surfline, and, in a sure sign of approaching winter, the steelhead trout are starting to stage in front of Soquel Creek.