The weather wasn't perfect for fishing on Monterey Bay this week, but good enough that boats could sneak out and get back in comfortably on most daysM With both salmon and rockfish seasons open now, there are plenty of choices where to go and what to pursue.

Tops on the list of course are king salmon. For this first week of season the salmon seem to be scattered throughout the bay, with no consistent concentrations of fish or bait in any one area. King salmon have been caught near Pt. Pinos, in Monterey by the Soldier's Club, near Mulligan Hill, Moss Landing, and Pajaro as well as right out front of Capitola and the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor. A few boats traveled up the coast towards Davenport and scored a few fish as well. Sadly many boats returned to the dock smelling of skunk, and two or three trips for one salmon was not an unusual story this week.

Most boats are picking up one or two fish, mostly by trolling. Many of the fish caught were in relatively shallow water of 70-90 feet. The best score reported to us this week was by Captain Gerry Brookes from Reel Sportfishing. The Doble caught five nice salmon in deeper water off the edge of the Monterey Bay Marine Canyon on Tuesday. Other party boats are reporting scores in the single digits if any salmon at all. Even in the deeper water, the majority of fish are getting hooked between 60 and 90 feet down.

Fishing for the RCG complex (rockfish, cabezone and greenling) has been steady and seems to be improving. The conventional inshore reefs are producing fish from 30 feet of water out to 120 feet. Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine weighed in quite a few ling cod this week, and advises fishing South Rock Reef or near Natural Bridges for best results. Ed Burrell at Capitola Boat and Bait is seeing some rockfish limits come in on his rental skiffs, mostly brown rockfish with a smattering of gophers, blacks and the occasional vermilion in the mix, along with small legal lingcod. A few private skiffs launching from the Capitola Wharf have traveled south towards Pajaro and returned with salmon.

All we need now to round things out are halibut. Cold-water temperatures seem to be keeping the big flatfish offshore in deeper water. A few weeks ago temps were relatively high on the inshore waters, as high as 59 degrees just in front of the Santa Cruz Harbor. But, a week or two of northwest winds, along with a couple big swells has dropped water temps to the 52-54-degree range. That is great for salmon fishing, not so great for halibut. Hopefully we'll see some flatties soon as they migrate in towards their summertime haunts.

The Pacific Fisheries Marine Council announced last week that sardines are "off-limits" for West Coast directed commercial fishing this year. The estimated biomass of sardines is 97,000 metric tons this year, down from a high of one million tons in 2006. Sardines can still be legally caught by individual sport anglers and for live bait harvest as well as Tribal harvest and some incidental catch. A cap of 7,000 Metric tons limits this legal catch of sardines this year.


Send your reports and fishing photos to Bushnell at scruzfishing@yahoo.com.