It’s all about the bait. We catch more fish when there are more fish around. There are more fish around when they have plenty to eat. And, there is plenty for them to eat right now in the Monterey Bay. Three are at least 20 big commercial bait boats working every night now near Rio Del Mar, catching squid.

Carol Jones from Kahuna Sportfishing says, “We have lots of squid in the bay right now. The problem is, this is the only place with squid so all the boats are fishing here. Which means they each are weighing in lighter loads.” Jones has a big reason to smile this week, as Monterey County finally lifted the charter boat ban for fishing last weekend. Some restrictions are in place. Masks are required and the charter load on the Kahuna tops out at 12 anglers. Still, the door is open for longtime customers to get back out on the bay to chase salmon, halibut and rockfish from Moss Landing Harbor.

“It’s still tough,” said Jones “but we get to take you fishing! I hear the joy in people’s voices when they realize they can finally go fishing.” The Kahuna fished for salmon over the weekend. Their best day was Sunday when they landed five king salmon. Kahuna will start running rock cod trips this week and will continue to target salmon when new schools come into the bay. Chris’ Fishing Trips from Monterey is also up and running at this time. With three boats in their fleet, they’ve run a bunch of trips already. A couple salmon trips featured up to seven fish landed on the Check Mate Wednesday, and all the rockfish trips have reported limits so far. (Why am I not surprised?)

In Santa Cruz, Stagnaro’s Sportfishing runs two big boats the Velocity and Legacy. Max load for Stagnaro’s is 15 anglers. Their report this week is much like Chris’. Salmon numbers were low, and rockfish numbers were high, as in limits. If the big squid spawns near Santa Cruz continue, we should see some interesting fishing over the next few weeks. We are already receiving reports of white sea bass caught near Capitola and a Pacific Halibut weighing 13 pounds was caught by Capitola fisherman Miguel Montano. When asked about the report, Capitola Boat and Bait owner Frank Ealy said, “Yes it’s true. I was here when it came in. One of the rental skiffs caught it out by the Mile Buoy. He caught it on squid, I think. it went about 13 pounds.” Pacific halibut are rare this far south, but nowhere near unheard of. Ealy continued, “We saw one in here two years ago. We used to get ‘em up to 40-50 pounds. It’s not a new thing. When I was a young kid we’d catch them off Stagnaro’s boats. They follow the bait. They follow the squid.”