You might assume Monterey Bay fishing would slow down as we move towards wintertime. Au contraire, mon ami. With the opening of Dungeness crab season, sport fishers around the bay have been rejuvenated. This week, many boats were pulling limits of tasty crab as well as bringing in limits of rockfish and lingcod.

Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine in Santa Cruz is stoked. During the week he reported, “The crab fishing was great today with boats reporting limits of jumbo crab. There were limits caught up the coast near Davenport and some limits caught straight out. Rock fishing was great today because there is still no swell or wind! Come enjoy this time of the year! The crab fishing seems to be better in 100-180 feet of water. The anglers are catching limits with squid, mackerel, and sardines. The rock fishing was good on the west side (of Santa Cruz). The winds and swell are still down. Come take advantage of our Indian Summer!”

Beth Norton reported for Go Fish Santa Cruz saying “ Go Fish Santa Cruz Charters is back in the water with the boat sporting a new engine and electronics. The Miss Beth has a new 485 horsepower 5.9 Cummins engine with all new state of the art Simrad electronics. She debuted today traveling at 23 knots to the crab pots that yielded crew limits of Dungeness crab – 80 big ones! Captain JT took the clients north toward Davenport. They caught crew limits of quality rock fish including vermillion, yellow tail, white bellies canaries and widows.”

Tom Dolan from the Mega Bite in Santa Cruz posted results on Wednesday saying, “Beautiful day on the bay today with light winds and flat seas and a good whale show. Nailed the jumbo crab today then off to the deep for big fish. Came home with over 200 pounds of Dungeness crab, snapper and lingcod for six anglers.” Moss Landing’s Kahuna concentrated on the Big Sur area last weekend. Owner Carol Jones was happy to report, “EASY limits of rockfish on our long range trip today of which about 85% were beautiful vermilion up to nine pounds! Beautiful weather to boot! Can't ask for better.”

If you haven’t bought your Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project’s Albacore Feed tickets yet, that’s OK. Admissions are available at the door. The dinner/raffle/auction event will take place this Saturday November 9, at the Castroville Recreation Center, 11261 Crane Street. MBSTP Executive Director Ben Harris invites us all, saying, “The Annual Albacore Feed Dinner is MBSTP’s biggest fundraising event- and we hope you’ll join us for a fun-filled evening of great prizes/auctions, fish stories and all-you-can-eat albacore! This is a great chance to connect with old friends through MBSTP and learn about everything our organization is doing to benefit local salmon & steelhead right here in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties. This fundraiser is very important to continuing the legacy of MBSTP and allowing us to do the work we do!”