Poor weather conditions continue to vex local anglers as they pursue the bounty of the sea. For the most part, the fish are out there, but wind, swell and surface chop made fishing difficult in the early part of the week. The coming weekend looks like more of the same, with higher winds and a big northwest swell in the forecast.

As usual, rockfish are the best bet. Captain Jim Rubin had to cancel a couple trips this week due to weather, but made it out on Tuesday and Wednesday looking for rockfish on the local reefs off West Cliff. Rubin reported "near-limits" for his clients of quality black, olive and vermillion rockfish. "It got a lot nicer towards the end of the week," Rubin says. "When things settle down, we'll be back to early limits. The fish are out there."

Meanwhile, Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine is making the most of his fresh-dead squid supply. I'm not entirely convinced that fresh-dead catch more halibut than the frozen variety, but Fraser came back to the dock with a limit of three flatties on Wednesday after using the fresh ones. This may, of course, be due to his superior fishing ability, though most anglers around the Harbor would credit the squid. Fraser worked the area from Lighthouse Point to the Harbor, and halibut were reported caught from the area just East of the Harbor as well as from Capitola. The 40-60-foot depth seems to be best right now, according to Fraser. Salmon fishing remains slow for most anglers. Trollers working deep near the Soquel Hole caught a few fish, but the average is well below a fish per rod at this time.