Weather and water conditions held steady this week, allowing Monterey boaters to turn the corner at Point Pinos and fish the deep reefs off of Carmel for great success. Limits of rockfish were the norm, with plenty of chilipeppers, bocaccio, yellowtail, vermilion and canary rockfish were reported caught.

Boats from Moss Landing Harbor are heading north or south to find rockfish and lings. It’s not a long cruise in either direction to find good reef structure and fill the coolers. Straight out of Moss, the mainstay is crabbing. Dungeness are on the move but spread out from 120 to nearly 300 feet of water. The sand flats near deep canyon edges are still producing best.  

The main biomass of Dungeness crab are north of Monterey Bay so far this year. Decent catches via hoop net, even limits, are reported daily by the Santa Cruz boats, but Half Moon Bay and up past the Golden Gate the crab are bigger and more numerous. It’s decent crabbing in the Monterey Bay area, and really good crabbing up north. There is still plenty to fish for with deepwater rockcod fishing remaining productive and entertaining. Inshore fishing is somewhat slower, though plenty of lingcod are moving in to the shallow reefs, and there are still big grumpy reds and brown rockfish getting hooked from the 30-60 foot reefs near town, along with the very occasional halibut. 

Surfcasters found waves and wind mostly calm this week and the timing of the tides was very favorable for surfcasters in the Central Coast area. A few stripers were reported caught from the beaches below Half Moon Bay, and a couple local anglers found limits of “large size” barred surf perch while fishing the state beaches towards Pescadaro. Slinging snares for Dungeness crab off the North Coast beaches may not always garner limits of crab, but most who tried recently caught plenty enough for a dinner or two.

Barred surf perch are filling back onto the beaches since the waves died down this week. Many anglers reported “a fish every cast,” depending of course on where they were fishing. Most fish were medium-sized with a couple reported 15-inchers caught. Recents storms created some remarkable structure to hold the perch, especially long parallel troughs well within casting range, and inside of the outer sandbar breaking waves. Watch for the wave “re-form” areas and use the side currents to swing your bait or lure into the feeding zone. It might be worth a little traveling time for anglers who enjoy surfcasting the marine plateau area just south of Big Sur.  George Saniatan from Santa Maria spent a long day at the beach recently for some big results. He brought home 35-and 37-inch stripers, as well as a full limit of 10 fat slab barred surf perch. Sanation also reports a few giant BSP he caught last week in the 16-inch and over class.