After a blustery weekend that featured an actual tornado touchdown near Santa Cruz, weather conditions settled down and most days were quite fishable on Monterey Bay, especially in the mornings.

Deep water rockfish remains the mainstay for local anglers. Deep reefs beyond the 300-foot line continue to kick out a nice assortment of chilipeppers, vermilion, canaries and yellowtail  rockfish. Boats fishing from Carmel down past Point Sur were rewarded with high counts of lingcod as well. Chris’ Fishing Trips averaged about 3/4 limits of rockfish on their sojourns this week, but their bags included up to 14 ling cod per trip. The lings were big, weighing up to 25 pounds. 

On the Santa Cruz side of the bay, our charter boats did not find quite as many lingcod, but the rockfishing was a bit better with limits being the most common tally. Stagnaro’s Sportfishing counted limits for their seven-hour trips both Friday and Sunday. Go Fish Santa Cruz Charters headed north to Ano Nuevo from the Santa Cruz Harbor on the beautiful Miss Beth. Skipper JT Thomas reported, “We fished the deep water at the Island today with Tom and his family. They caught limits of rock fish including chili peppers and yellow tail.”

Halibut, for the most part, have moved on out to deeper waters for the winter. They will start filtering back in to the 60-foot depths in March. There are always those maverick wintertime flatties, however. Every year we get reports of halibut caught during the depths of winter. A local kayak fisherman in Monterey took advantage of benign conditions to do some sand dab fishing near Pacific Grove. Joe Huettl reported, “I caught a few sand dabs at 150-160’ but was using a larger 2 hook rig to avoid the puny ones. Then I had one on and it felt decent. Then real decent and I wondered if I got a sole. Then real heavy and pulled some drag and I figured a lingcod had grabbed my dab. Exciting, but nothing I could keep, but I didn’t want to bust off my rig so I eased it up slowly from the deep. Then at 30’ down I saw color and it was a nice halibut! Now the stakes were higher and I really didn’t want to lose it. I loosened the drag a bit and was able to gaff it first attempt. My rough measure while it was still kicking was about 35” or so.”

A longtime champion for local salmon and steelhead, Rick Peretto, sent us a reminder to pay strict attention to local steelhead regulations. The species is still listed as “threatened” and these fish are very vulnerable to mishandling and other angling pressures.  Peretto says, "I was thinking it would be nice if you would put something in your column about the new stream regulations for Santa Cruz County regarding the low flow restrictions. None of the streams are fishable if the San Lorenzo River flow is below 40 cubic feet per second. You might want to check the fishing regulations for proper wording. Also, a reminder that the streams are only fishable on Wednesday's, Saturday's, Sunday's, and legal holidays.” Thank you Mr. Peretto!