Sentinel/HeWell, we had another week of weird weather. Inland areas sweltered under triple-digit temps while we on the coast merely hit the mid-nineties. At the same time a small but powerful south swell hit the coast and “red-tide” algae blooms occurred near most beaches in the Monterey Bay. Despite all this, fishing inshore remained fairly steady, while offshore angling looks to be getting better, finally.

Charter operations in Santa Cruz, Moss Landing and Monterey continue to record limits of rockfish for their clients and are averaging around one lingcod per rod. Prime spots for the groundfish are shifting to deeper water, and the best fishing is just outside the bay. That means towards Carmel and Point Sur from Monterey, and North Coast towards Davenport for Santa Cruz.

Surfcasting the mid-bay beaches has been rather slow, though beaches near Monterey and in Santa Cruz continue to provide steady action for barred surf perch. Angler Pat Kuhl from Marina provided a great overview on beach fishing in that area this week, reporting ” Schools of large stripers (10-20 pounds) have been cruising by Monterey Wharf 2 at night for the past few weeks. But, the beach stripers have been slow otherwise. Barred perch fishing is heating up. Lots of pregnant fish right now though, so remember to consider releasing any abnormally chubby perch) The halibut bite is still good between DelMonte & Seaside beaches in 40-70 feet of water. Lots of undersize butts caught from shore this summer (and one 35-pounder).”

The warm clear “tuna water” has been hovering offshore all summer. Repeated exploratory trips have produced few tuna to note, despite what looks like perfect conditions. This week saw a change, with boats starting to pick up albacore from 30-70 miles offshore from the Davidson Seamount area to areas up past the Farallon Islands.

Captain Mike Baxter returned from a quick trip on Monday with six tuna in the box. Baxter reported, “I fished with Jay Friesen on his boat ‘Air 2’ out of Half Moon Bay. We ran west for 37 miles to numbers 37:10/123:03. There was not a lot of fish sign. We saw warm blue 62-degree water, a few shearwaters and jaegers and couple patches of deep bait at 150 feet. These were juvenile rockfish the albacore were feeding on. We got mostly (trolling) jig strikes, single bites with one triple. When we stopped, a dozen fish or so would show up on the meter under the boat but we had no live bait. We did have one strike on an iron. If we had live bait we probably could've caught a few more. We are blessed with some albacore in the area but there are not a large number of fish there.”

rald Fish Report