It must be the height of summer, because everything is working for us right now on the Monterey Bay. Whether one fishes for rockfish, lingcod or halibut, chances of success are very high. Barred surfperch are getting bigger and an increasing number of striped bass have been caught in our area. Best of all, the elusive and ghostly White Sea Bass are present in what we hope is a return engagement of last year's epic sea bass season.

Taking it from the top, rockfishing continues to be very productive from local reefs near the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor and continuing past the West Cliff area to the reefs near Wilder's Ranch. Jigging shrimp flies remains the standby method for local rockfish, but plastic swimbaits and metal jigs are doing the trick as well. "We have been getting nice size blacks, gophers and brown rockfish. The whopper for the week was a 22-pound lingcod caught on the local reef on Saturday night" Ken Stagnaro reported from his flagship Velocity. Between salmon trips, Captain Jimmy Sportfishing has been working the 80-120-foot reefs just north of town. "Friday, we had four anglers and four limits of nice rockcod including blues, blacks, olives, vermillion and one lingcod." The halibut bite remains steady in the usual flat sandy areas in 20-60 feet of water. Captain Jimmy Rubin also took advantage of a few good salmon days this week. "We netted 10 salmon for five anglers on Saturday, and 12 fish for six Tuesday. All the fish were in the 18-25-pound range, big and meaty!" Anglers who booked salmon trips with Gerry Brookes on the Doble enjoyed similar success. "The salmon fishing is off the charts. We put in 12 fish today to 26 pounds by 10:30, and came home with limits for passengers, deck hand and captain. It's nice to be eating fresh salmon tonight. All our fish were stuffed with krill. There is tons of bait, whales and birds out there. It doesn't get much better than this!" Local anglers kept things quiet for a few days as a big school of big White Sea Bass voraciously fed on spawning squid near Capitola. But, the word spread quickly, and a fleet of boats were fishing near Pleasure Point on the Fourth of July Holiday. To give an idea of the fish quality, we have received no reports of sea bass caught weighing less than 20 pounds! Many of the sea bass are much bigger, including the 65-pounder caught by Capitola denizen Sheriff Larry Roland. Ed Burrell at Capitola boat and bait has weighed in dozens of the big sea bass over the past few days and gives this advice for catching them on the double-hook flyline-" It's very much like a halibut rig or a rat-trap except for no weight, or very little. Watch for where the birds are working and try to give distance between you and the other boats. Cast out 20 to 30 feet, put the in the holder, than all you need is some patience." Having a loose drag pre-set on your reel is important as well. Sea Bass are know for blistering early runs once they take the bait, so make sure you have plenty of line spooled and that your knots are good