Salmon fishing always gets the most press, and rightly so. We are in the middle of a very productive salmon season in Monterey Bay. It's just not going to be red hot every day.

The past week saw a good number of salmon an even some limits caught by sport anglers from the Soquel hole area and on up the line to towards Davenport. Todd Fraser from Bayside Marine worked the Three Trees area and had limits by noon on Monday. "The Salmon were all caught on Krippled Anchovies and big U.V. Hot Spot Flashers. They were 20-50 feet down but the 20-25 foot area was the hottest for us. Some anglers ran to Monterey and caught a few fish but the best bet was to work the area with krill and whales."

The pattern seems to be holding, of successive waves of salmon schools entering the Bay near Monterey, then feeding their way towards Santa Cruz, and continuing north. Pay attention to the daily reports and be ready to go when the bite heats up.

Speaking of heating up, the water temperature has risen over the last week and spurred the bite for a variety of inshore species, especially in the Capitola area. Ed Burell at Capitola boat and Bait notes numerous limits of rockfish coming in on the rental skiffs. The nearby kelp beds, and deeper reefs off Capitola and Soquel Point are kicking out reds, blues and brown rockfish. A few cabezone and some nice lingcod were caught in that area as well this week.

Pier anglers using live shiner perch caught from the wharf brought in a number of nice sand sole, always good eating. Burrell also lets us know he is seeing more squid schools in the immediate area. Jigging for squid provides instant calamari, or for the more adventurous can be gambled towards a larger return, like big halibut or White Sea Bass. That's right, a couple nice sea bass were reported caught in the area this week. Remember the mantra "find the squid, you will find the sea bass." Burrell himself came in with a fine halibut jigged up were in 60 feet of water, on the east side of Adams Reef.

Even surfcasters have a good shot at big fish right now. A number of striped bass have been caught on the long stretch of beaches from New Brighton towards Moss Landing, or off the piers and Cement Ship. Barred surfperch are most common, and some are big, gravid females. Please practice catch and release with these females who have not given birth to their live young as yet. Of course, the shiner and walleye perch are biting shrimp bits from the piers, and Burrell reported on Red Tail perch caught last week, and unusual occurrence this far south.