This week's breezy weather presented a challenge for smaller boats fishing out of the Santa Cruz Harbor. Conditions were calm most mornings, but the winds came up early and blew steady every afternoon. Despite the challenge, local anglers are returning to port with a variety of species, including rockfish, lingcod, halibut and king salmon.

Captain Jimmy Charters made it out every day this week. Skipper Jim Rubin is taking maximum advantage of conditions to provide his clients with stellar rockfishing. Working the area just above Santa Cruz, Rubin is boating limits of rockfish on a daily basis. "It's a good mix of blues, blacks and olives," Rubin reports. Perhaps the most desired of our local rockfish, the larger vermillion or red rockfish, are showing up in good numbers as well. Rubin has averaged a dozen vermillion per day for those fishing aboard the Becky Ann. In the meantime, Gerry Brookes on the Doble is giving Rubin a run for his money. "On Saturday, the seas were a bit grumpy, but the fish were biting. We ended the day with four limits of big reds, blacks and lings." Brookes went out for limits again on Sunday, "mostly reds, and all the lings today were just a bit short." Stagnaro's Sportfishing reports are pretty much identical. Skipper Ken Staganaro has been fishing the local reefs for early limits of rockfish and plenty of reds in the bags. Stagnaro's will be alternating rockfish and salmon trips weekly for the immediate future.

Todd Fraser from Bayside Marine says, "Salmon are still being caught by those who are taking the time to fish for them." With easier access to rockfish and the occasional halibut, fewer boats are on the salmon search. Nevertheless, Fraser fielded salmon reports from all over Monterey Bay this week, including the Soquel Hole, the North Coast from Natural Bridges up to Davenport and from the canyon area just three miles from Monterey Harbor. The Monterey area has hosted a small fleet of commercial salmon boats this week. While numbers of salmon caught are not staggering, the fishing is steady and reports of plentiful bait in that area bode well. Chris Arcoleo from Chris' Fishing Trips in Monterey noticed the salmon caught this week were "stuffed with squid, krill and anchovies."

We can expect to see halibut fishing improve dramatically over the next few weeks. The advance scouts are moving into shallow water now. Flat sandy areas outside Capitola, in front of the Santa Cruz Harbor, and outside the kelp beds off West Cliff have produced increasing numbers of flatties this week, mostly in the 10-16-pound range. Until we get a supply of live anchovies or sardines, whole squid seems to be the best producing bait for the flat ones.