If you like to fish, Monterey Bay is a very good place to be these days. Whether mooching or trolling for salmon, surfcasting for big striped bass, jigging for early limits of rockfish on the local reefs or drifting the sandy shallows with live bait for a "big mama" halibut, most anglers reaped rewards from the sea this week.

Number one on the list is the sustained salmon bite in the Bay. While our local Soquel Hole location was "hit or miss" for salmon according to Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine, the grade of fish caught in that area was impressive, averaging from 15-30 pounds. Anglers found the fish by trolling deep along the edge of the canyon.

To the south, the salmon are more numerous, but are smaller. Jim Rubin has been taking clients across the Bay to the Bell Buoy outside Monterey Harbor. Fishing in 180-250 feet of water, Rubin's clients averaged a fish per rod every trip this week. Most of the king salmon caught in that area are on the smaller side, averaging 6-14lbs. They are numerous, however, which allows Rubin to mooch rather than troll for the fish.

With light tackle mooching rods, and hot salmon hitting bait just 10-20 feet from the surface, Rubin's clients enjoyed blistering action all week. Other reports from the area between Monterey and Moss Landing featured decent salmon counts, mostly from the Soldier's Club and Mulligan Hill locations. We also received a few reports throughout the week of salmon caught just offshore, in water as shallow as 30 feet.

Fishing for rockcod and lings remains very productive. In fact, since the beginning of the season, most skippers have not needed to go much farther than the local reefs for early limits of rockfish. The 30-60 foot reefs off West Cliff, scattered rocks in front of the Santa Cruz Harbor, and the entire area from Pleasure Point along the kelpline to New Brighton Beach still host a consistent rockfish bite, with numerous lingcod in the mix.

Those same areas have flat sandy stretches between the rocks, and that's where anglers are finding halibut. Since the last south swell died down, the flatties are moving back into shallow water and feeding aggressively. Ed Burrell at Capitola Boat and Bait can't decide if Pleasure Point or the Capitola kelp was better for halibut last week. Burrell weighed in multiple halibut from each of those areas on a daily basis last week. The fish ranged from eight up to nearly 30 pounds, and are hitting on live sardines, dead squid, fishtraps and occasionally on shrimp fly jigs.

Burrell adds that the striper bite is improving, with most fish coming from New Brighton Beach or the Cement Ship, but a few caught from the Capitola Wharf itself, by anglers using bobbers near the surfline.

And finally, while we have few details from the secretive society of Sea Bass anglers, rumors are spreading of these elusive "ghost fish" on the chew along the nearby kelp and out to 70 feet of water between Capitola and Pleasure Point.