Area anglers enjoyed a remarkable week of fishing in our area. Halibut are back on the bite, stripers are hitting from the beaches, salmon showed up in the shallows and rockcod fishing is picking up on the local reefs.

Early in the week, the salmon bite was very good in front of Moss Landing Harbor and in relatively shallow water near Capitola, according to Todd Fraser from Bayside Marine. On Monday, anglers were getting limits of salmon from 80-100 feet of water just outside Capitola. There are a lot of silvers in the mix, so be sure to check the gumline. Silver salmon are not legal to keep and have a pale stripe along their gums. The legal king salmon gums are all black. Monday and Tuesday saw a good number of salmon caught directly in front of Moss Landing. Since then, hordes of mackerel have moved into the Capitola area though a number of salmon are still being caught from the Soquel Hole.

For Mackerel fishing, the Capitola Wharf is on fire right now. Frank Ealy, owner of Capitola Boat and Bait says, "it's wide open." Bring your children and your trout rods to the wharf and use a bait jig or small spinner lures to catch as many mackerel as you want. According to Ealy, the halibut bite is decent near Capitola with numerous flatties being caught fro the rental skiffs this week, including two on Wednesday. White Sea Bass are still in that area with a 28-pound fish being reported to Ealy. A few small striped bass were caught from the wharf this week, and the bite for stripers up to 20 pounds was good early in the week for surfcasters working Manresa Beach in the morning and evening twilight.

Rockfishing is good and getting better. Stagnaro's Velocity took advantage of the good weather to fish the ?ĮDavenport and Ano Nuevo areas this week. "We had limits at Ano by 11:30 on Sunday. The clients caught 40 Vermillion rockfish in the five to seven pound range, as well as six lingcod," says Skipper Ken Stagnaro. He adds that the local reefs are starting to produce more quality rockfish ads the water warms, especially the West Cliff reefs and South Rock, near Lighthouse Point.

The big news for the week has to be albacore. Reel Sportfishing's Gerry Brookes says, "It all depends if the weather will let you get out there or not." On Sunday, Brookes caught 10 tuna with his clients, and his Tuesday trip netted 17 of the hard-fighting albacore. Captain Jimmy Charters is also running albacore trips, catching 15 tuna up to 28 pounds on Wednesday. In order to maximize fishing time, Stagnaro's will send the Princess out on an overnight tuna trip this Saturday. The warm water is getting closer to Santa Cruz; with tuna being caught only 22 miles from Santa Cruz. This fishery depends on weather conditions, so now is the time to plan a local tuna trip, while it lasts.