Last weekend proved to be quite fishable in the Monterey Bay. But, by Monday night, high winds returned to our area. Weather buoys clocked gusts over 50 miles per hour on Tuesday, and sustained winds reached 25 or 30 mph for the next few days in the afternoons. It made fishing deeper water kind of tough. Current forecasts predict the high winds to die down for the coming weekend, though drizzle and the chance of rain on Sunday and Monday are also included in the mix.

Rain never stopped avid anglers though, and even the winds didn't keep everyone in the harbor last week. A few hardy souls ventured out early and caught salmon at the Soquel Hole, and near Pajaro. The quality of fish remains high with 12-14 pound salmon common, and a few caught in the mid-20-pound range. According to Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine, the trick was to get out early and fish hardware a bit deeper. "The anglers had the best action early on Watermelon Apexes, Krippled Anchovies, Cable Baiters, and F.B.R.'s 45-80 feet down." Fraser also notes a few fish were right on the bottom, about 240 feet down.

A much better bet in these conditions is to fish inshore. The rockfish and lingcods are biting well, considering these winds and our latest swell. A few boats even took the ride up coast to fish the rocky reefs. Tim Obert from Ultimate Charters had good things to say about the fishery in that area right now. "We have been fishing Four-Mile down in 60-90 feet of water, and have had wide open fishing on big vermilion, olives and blacks. We've also had some large lingcod mixed in! The rockfish have been coming on squid tipped shrimpflies and the lingcod are hitting whole squid and assorted lures, FishTraps and iron mostly. There have been some bonus halibut caught, they have just started to show and will gradually get better as the summer approaches."

Ken Stagnaro had similar luck on last weekend's trip on the Velocity, fishing the area off West cliff to Natural Bridges and slightly North. "On Sunday we caught limits of good quality cod plus three keeper lings to 15 pounds. We had a really good mixture of blues, blacks and yellows." Captain Jim Rubin also is stoked with the number and quality of this early-season rockfish bite. "What a great day of fishing! We had a private charter today with four great anglers. we landed limits of rock cod - 40 blues, blacks, olives and vermilions. We also landed six ling cod weighing from eight-17 pounds.

Pictured Above: Drifting with a whole squid got Ken Obee this 25-pound halibut in Monterey last week.