Whales are still very active off Soquel point in about 70 feet of water – these guys saw them fluking their tales, jumping, and spouting. Even minus the fish it’s a pretty good show out there, especially given the great weather.

We’ve only had a few boats out, so the rentals that have been out have more or less had the ocean to themselves. The clock is ticking – come on down if you wanna get out there while the fishing’s good.

Wharf fishing has been pretty good this week, with a lot of mackerel, some jack smelt, and a couple small halibut. The mackerel bite has continued to be pretty good in the later part of the day each day this week. Weather’s been incredible – temperatures have been in the middle to upper 70s with a light breeze and it’s supposed to hold into the weekend.

Here’s Mark and Osvalto with part of what was just shy of two limits of rock cod. They went out with the little skipper gps and fished off Adam’s reef using shrimpfly rigs with strips of squid. Another rental we had out today caught more than 2 limits of rock cod plus a short ling. They only kept a dozen of the rock cod, but they were nice fish. They were fishing off Boomer’s reef using rock cod rigs with strips of squid plus some live sardines and mackerel.

Both boats got a really great whale show – between the cement ship to the wharf there have been a bunch of whales working the bait. There’s been a lot of dolphin action as well – there were three working right off the beach this morning.

Today Don caught and released a steelhead off the wharf down close to the beach. We think he was using anchovies on a bobber. Also on the wharf, mackerel are still coming in. Water’s been a bit muddy but mackerel seem to start biting on bait jigs under bobbers with stips of anchovy and mackerel later in the day none the less. The rentals had no problem jigging bait either – there seems to be plenty around.

There’s still bait around – mackerel is coming in pretty nicely off the wharf. We had a couple rentals out but they didn’t do too well other than a few jacksmelt here and there. ‘Course again – not many boats out means what we see is not a very good sample of what’s going on (witness Ed’s catch).

The forecast is for some pretty great weather possibly straight through the weekend, so that plus the fact that the end of season alarm clock is ticking… Well you really should be fishing shouldn’t you

We only had two boats out today. One was trying for halibut but ended up only getting some browns. He did get onto a lot of sardines and mackerel though.

The other boat boat – did a bit better: 2 limits of grass and 20 rock crab, all off the Capitola reef.

A correction: Our fearless leader misread the Fish and Game regs and announced that they’d rolled up the rock cod closure for this season to November 15th. He was, in fact, reading NEXT YEAR’S regulations. So to be clear: Rock cod (the RCG complex) closes November 30th this year – there has been no change. Sorry for the confusion. Our fearless leader had a senior moment

He caught the mackerel using bait jig with strips of mackerel under a bobber.

Elsewhere on the wharf Andy and the old guys caught some perch, and Ed saw the first decent steelhead of the year – maybe 2 pounds – jumping right by the hoist. Steelhead are catch and release weekends, Wednesdays, and holidays, and it opens here December 1st.

Oh – and remember: Rock cod is only open ’til November 15th, so if you want to get in some fishing before the end of the season, you should think about getting a move on and get out here. Use those boat bucks folks!

Another boat that was out today caught a few rock cod using the little skipper and a fish finder, and they were also treated to a humpback whale breaching and blowing and flapping its tail. They were fishing out by the yellow buoy – quite a nice show!

Hopefully this holds into the weekend. Not many boats going out – four yesterday and only one today. So of course our view of things is limited.

On the boats, fishing was poor. Out of nine boats out we only saw about 1 dozen rock cod come in. Some of the boats also came in with large mackerel and smelt. Bait jigs were getting the jacksmelt and mackerel, shrimp fly jigs with squid were getting the rock cod.

The problem has been the swell – a good three foot southerly – that’s a remnant of the weather we had the other day. The weather is otherwise great – sunny and in the 70s with no wind. The swell is supposed to come down – it’ll probably take a day or two. If it does, Wednesday or Thursday should see fishing pick up again.

Both boats were using GPSs – one used the Little Skipper, the other used their own with a few of the Skipper’s numbers.

You can probably tell that the season is winding down a bit, but the rock cod fishing is pretty good.

In other news. Frank and Kurtis came in from an albacore expedition – Frank had four bonita caught on megabait lures, and Kurtis had three albacore and four bonita (which he didn’t keep). They said that there are some bonita out in the Soquel hole, so hopefully in the next week or two we’ll see those inside the rental boundaries. Probably won’t see albacore that close, but fingers are crossed