This week featured lots of wind, which always makes fishing difficult if not impossible. Most mornings, the gusty air was light enough to allow boats to shoot out beyond the 300-foot line to fish for the deepwater rockfish. When they make it out there, the rewards are ample. Those fish from the deep, also known as "shelf" or "slope" rockfish are numerous, hungry and average a much bigger size than most inshore models. 

Chris' Sportfishing from Monterey always posts limits of fish. This week they counted up to 150 rockfish, 10 lingcod and 30 petrale sole for their trips aboard the Check Mate and Caroline. Rodney Armstrong from Santa Cruz Coastal Fishing Charters got his last licks in past the 300-foot line, and quipped, "Deep water is putting out good quality fish. We got limits for the group and some nice soles as well. In May we will start out light tackle rock fish, lingcod trips." Captain JT Thomas from Go Fish Santa Cruz Charters had a similar story to tell. He reported "We fished the deep waters today. It was the last day of fishing the deep waters until later this year. After today we will be running near shore trips. The clients caught limits of quality rock fish including canaries, widows, big vermillion, green spots , chili peppers and even the occasional colorful flag fish over the past few weeks."

Charter operations and private boats alike should do real well on the inside, which opened for fishing on Wednesday. The 300 foot depths are closed now, and will reopen in October. In the meantime, it's angler's choice as to which species to pursue out to the 120 foot line. Nearshore rockfish abound in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas, and some of the high quality "deepwater" rockfish can be found in these waters as well. Vermilion, canaries and yellows come to mind. 

Restrained to the shallower waters, we'll be catching gopher rockfish, browns, blacks, and blues feeding on local reefs and rocky areas, plus the highly desired California halibut on the sandy areas near and between the reefs. We've already seen reports of halibut in the 50-70 foot areas all along the bay, and the species move in even more shallow as the season progresses. On Wednesday, Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine commented, "The inshore conditions were calm all morning today. There was a mix of rock fish and lingcod caught in 120 feet or less. There were a few halibut caught in Capitola. Striped bass are still biting on Lucky Crafts near the west side. The conditions look good for tomorrow."

As reported last week, there are lots of quality perch on the bite, especially at those beaches that have retained much of their wintertime structure.The mix of swells over the past month has served to somehow preserve the deeper troughs that parallel the beach line. Troughs feature not only deeper water, but also a moving current. Get your bait into that current and make an ultra-slow retrieve, just enough to keep your line tight. Be prepared to weed through the smaller perch as you wait for that lunker to hit. Sandcrabs are the “sure-thing" bait right now, though plastic grubs and the GULP! sandworms are getting nearly as many bites. The crabs are plentiful and they're free. Plus, until the baitfish move in closer to shore, those stripers are gorging on sandcrabs. They'll hit an artificial worm or even better a moving grub. But a big old live sandcrab is what they're looking for right now on the inside troughs just behind the shorebreak. The bigger the sandcrab, the bigger the fish that can make a grab for it.