It’s nice to be back in my favorite fishing spot on earth, Santa Cruz. This week’s southern hemispheric swell was bolstered by another southern pulse generated by hurricane Marie, which is traveling north northwest in the open ocean, roughly parallel to Baja Mexico. South swells, even those that are not very big in terms of height can be very powerful due to the long period aspect of the waves. The current swell is no exception, and it is making surfcasting a bit difficult as the shore break impact zone has been rather violent, and there is quite a bit of floating seagrass and kelp in the mix.

For those with boats or access to a charter, the swell presents little problem. Rockfish and lingcod are providing limit-style returns for anglers fishing both nearshore in 40-70 feet of water as well as those hunting deep water rockfish out at 300 feet or more. Lingcod are getting bigger and more numerous as we move into fall and approach their winter spawning season. Late November and December are the best months to catch the lingzilla females that will be inhabiting the rocky reefs in 30 to 50 feet of water outside of Carmel, Big Sur and the reefs near and north of Santa Cruz.

South swells definitely have the effect of driving halibut from the warm placid, nearshore sand out to deeper water. They like clear water for their hunting. And, there are plenty of big halibut out there still. Reports indicate numerous halibut, even limits caught on a daily basis from Westside Santa Cruz down to the Pajaro area and outside of Moss Landing on the sandy flats in 40-70 feet of water. We have also received consistent reports from the Sand City and DelMonte Beach areas of halibut ranging from barely legal (22 inches) up to 30 pounds during this past week. 

Those same areas are also holding a bonanza of white seabass. For weeks now, anglers have been finding these hard fighting and delicious big croakers while using live mackerel, smelt, and squid. White seabass hit hard and usually take one or two blistering runs when first hooked. Check your drags. Some consider the seabass to be the best table fare available from our local ocean waters. We do have resident white seabass here year-round, but conditions as we are experiencing now with warmer than normal waters and abundant bait bring in tanker seabass migrating up from the Channel Islands area. Let’s enjoy it while we can. There’s a good possibility they will stick around for the next month or so.

Wind conditions on the outside have kept most boats from chasing the big schools of bluefin tuna that have been hanging out 10 to 50 miles offshore, from Big Sur up to Farrallones area. According to Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine, only a few bluefin were reported caught this week. We believe this is not from a lack of tuna in the area, but rather a lack of anglers chasing those tuna.

On a final note, the September salmon season is open and scheduled to remain open for the month. And, there are salmon out there. The best fishing for Kings right now is to the north, particularly for those boats launching out of half Moon Bay Harbor. Captain Tom Joseph on the Sara Bella runs a speedy four pack and has enjoyed full limits of eight salmon on all of his recent trips. These are beautiful fish feeding in the Pacifica area as they stage their reentry into the Sacramento river system for spawning.