Weather and ocean conditions are settling down after a windy weekend. Private boats and charter operations alike are finding plenty of opportunities to bring home a good catch from the Monterey Bay.

Salmon fishing, if not stellar, has at least remained consistent. The salmon schools are spread out now, with fishing fleets concentrated near the Pajaro Hole and the Soquel Hole. According to Todd Fraser from Bayside Marine, private boat scores averaged zero to four fish per boat as of Wednesday. There are always a few highliners who end up in the right place at the right time and do everything right once the salmon hit.

This week's honors go to Jack Tereci on the private vessel Nancee Leigh. Tereci caught a limit of six fish on Monday, and a near-limit of five salmon on Tuesday. The quality of these salmon was high with the biggest tipping the scales at 24 pounds, gutted and gilled. Party boats found things more difficult, but caught king salmon nevertheless. Stagnaro's Sportfishing reported five kings caught on Monday. Owner Ken Stagnaro reported, "That score was not due to lack of action. The sea lions snatched fish on four different occasions, and we released three under-sized fish as well."

For a sure thing, take advantage of the newly opened season and go rockfishing. We are seeing very good scores of rockfish and lingcod since the opener on May 1. Jim Rubin from Captain Jimmy Charters has been working the West Cliff reefs and up to Wilders Ranch, fishing 60-80 feet of water. Limits are the rule on his boat the Becky Ann. On Wednesday Rubin checked in with a typical report. ""Wow what a great day on the Bay! We had a private charter with six repeat anglers. They landed eight quality Ling Cod from seven-14 pounds and one bonus California halibut at 18 pounds on a swimbait! We also landed 80 quality rock cod. The rock cod were our local blacks, blues, yellowtail, vermilions and big browns." Chris' sportfishing in Monterey submitted similar reports, with limits of rockfish and limits of lingcod on the Star of Monterey Wednesday.

In other news, Todd Fraser reported "today a few boats did run out for albacore towards the Davidson but they did not find any clean water or albacore." The warm water is within reach and we hope to have have some tuna action soon. And, kudos go to the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project. Director Bob Anderson has installed the king salmon net pens at the Santa Cruz Harbor and is nurturing his first load of 60,000 juvenile salmon, set for release this week. MBSTP is also hosting its annual Membership Meeting tonight, Friday May 16, 6-9pm at the Aptos Grange. All are invited to Come enjoy food, vote (current members only), and participate in Q&A about MBSTP's local fisheries effort.
There will be an engaging presentation on Local Salmon Recovery Science, 
by NOAA Fisheries at 7:30 pm.


Bushnell can also be heard on The Let's Go Fishing Radio Show Thursday nights at 8pm on KSCO radio 1080 AM. Send your photos, comments or questions to scruzfishing@yahoo.com