Anglers around the Monterey Bay enjoyed another good week of summertime fishing. Weather conditions were mild and a variety of species are on the bite.

If you just need to get out for fun and to get some fish for the freezer, or want to host some friends and family, using one of our local charter operations is the ticket. Options range from very affordable half-day trips to while-day, long-range outings to the wild coasts north of Santa Cruz, or south to Big Sur.

The Kahuna from Moss Landing makes the long trek to Big Sur where the fish are big, plentiful and willing to bite. On their last full-day trip, the Kahuna took 21 anglers down the coast. According to owner Carol Jones, their catch included, “two cabezone, 42 canary rockfish, 59 copper rockfish, 42 lingcod and 95 vermilion rockfish.

Chris’ Fishing Trips launch from Monterey and have reported limits for nearly every trip since April. This week the limits were leaning towards the lings with full limits of the toothy bottomfish for most trips aboard the Check Mate and Caroline.

Monday’s trips out of Santa Cruz on Stagnaro Sportfishing’s Velocity also featured big bags of rock cod for all anglers aboard. Skipper Ken Stagnaro reports, “Half day rock cod trip on Velocity today caught 260 rock fish for 30 people. Nice quality yellows and blues, no lings today. Second trip out on Legacy boated 120 rockfish for 20 anglers. Good fishing, good weather!”

Skipper Tom Dolan on the Mega-Bite reported similar results on his trips this week, saying, “Had good weather today. The first few spots we fished were a little slow paced, but we picked up and headed to another reef and made limits in about 45 minutes. Lots of reds mixed in with the nice grade of olives and blues.”

Halibut are still a very good bet all around the bay for anglers fishing the flat sandy areas from 30 to 60 feet of water. Monterey halibut spots include DelMonte Beach, Sand City and the Marina areas. The flats outside of Moss Landing Harbor are a good bet for flatties right now, as is the Pajaro Pipeline area.

New Brighton and Capitola, the Mile Buoy area and the sand channels off West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz have all produced halibut in the past week. The Capitola area also featured at least one white sea bass of the tanker variety. Luke Deiner used a white swim bait from a Capitola Boat and Bait skiff, and landed a brute sea bass weighing in at 57 pounds on Sunday.

If salmon is still on your mind, a robust bite is ongoing near Pacifica. Local angler Jeff Goyert played that card this week for big results. “I went back up to Half Moon Bay Monday to fish on the Riptide skippered by Capt. William "Smitty" Smith. We fished in close by Pedro Point in 60 feet of water. The boat ended up with 24 salmon for 14 rods. I only caught one fish but it was a nice one, close to 20 pounds.”