Ocean water temperature is averaging between three and four degrees warmer than usual, all around the Monterey Bay. This is great news for anglers as summertime conditions typically foster the maximum opportunity for fishing a wide variety of ‘normal’ species in our area.Warmer water can also provide for some unusual catches, such as the big calico bass caught by Erik Andreassen on Tuesday. He caught and released the hefty calico while fishing the West Cliff area of Santa Cruz near Lighthouse Point. While calicos are not super unusual for Monterey Bay, they usually show up towards the end of summer and usually in the southern portion of the bay, especially the protected inside corner near Cannery Row. Calicos are a blast to catch. They fight very hard, and are usually caught by SoCal anglers throwing swimbaits or using live bait in and around kelp beds on rocky shores. They are ready biters and will hit on trolled spoons or HairRaisers in the stretches between kelp bed edges. Andreassen was pursuing rockfish when he  pulled in his first “exotic” of the year.

Bread and butter fishing along inshore waters mainly consists of rock cod right now. Boats are doing well, though the late mornings and afternoons have been too windy to fish. An early start is important. The big charter boats are reporting limits or near limits. The New Horizon from J&M Sportfishing in Monterey had 73 rockfish and two lings for nine anglers on Saturday’s trip. Chris’ Fishing Trips, just down the Wharf reported limits (210) of rockies and nine lings for 21 anglers on Friday. In Santa Cruz, Stagnaro’s Sportfishing maintained half to three-quarter limits for their nearshore rockfish trips this week. Six pack operator Santa Cruz Coastal Fishing got as much fishing in as possible before the winds came up early this week. In a typical understatement, Skipper Rodney Armstrong reported, “Today the weather was not nice. We ended up getting all our rock fish but no lingcod. Got a nice variety of different species. Yellows, blues and blacks mostly.” Wednesday’s trip aboard the Knot Alone  was much the same.  Winds came up early forcing their return before getting limits of fish. Great showing of black rockfish again though, and a few beautiful vermilion as well. It’s good to see the black rockfish making a comeback, they’ve been scarce the past few years.

Todd at Bayside chimed in with a positive summary of success from boats fishing from the Santa Cruz Harbor. Fraser reported, “Inshore rock fishing was good early in the morning before the wind came up. The halibut anglers caught some nice fish near Capitola and Pajaro. There have been some halibut caught on the west side and in front of the harbor. The striped bass and perch are still biting on the beaches near Rio del Mar and Pajaro River.”

Surfcasting in general is getting better all around the Monterey Bay. We are seeing more sand crab beds established. Where there’s food, we’ll find fish! Perch up to 15 inches are biting well on live sand crabs. Using the soft-shelled crabs always elicits more bites, and some say attract bigger fish. For sure, using sand crabs ups the chances of getting a striper bite on your perch gear.

Stripers are showing up all around the bay right now as well. Most are what we call “schoolie-sized,” 15-24 inches. Anything over 18 inches can be kept, and the bag limit for striped bass remains at two per angler per day this year. A number of larger model bass were reported caught over the past few weeks as well. It’s getting better and better, with the best bite coming on the steep central beaches of Monterey Bay. The key is to start fishing before dawn. Most striper fishermen in our area agree that the hour before and the hour after sunrise is when they caught all their fish. Overcast skies might extend the bite further into the morning hours, and tide is not so much a factor this week.