Sadly, we have posted highlights here – not much going on with the boats. We saw one legal ling come in, and the boat that caught the halibut earlier in the day were the highliners with two limits of small browns. Darn Glenn of course got his limit, but that’s Darn Glenn. Most folks didn’t do so well. That said, only two boats were skunked out of 13 – most had at least two browns on board.

Sheriff Larry today confirms mind bending activity at the cement ship as far as stripers are concerned. He saw at least 30 fish in the 8 to 15 pound range chasing his rapella lure. They’d come up close to the pier and turn away. Maddening but fun none the less. What Larry wouldn’t give for a live sardine. Seriously. He could probably get you out of a ticket or something. hehe hehe just kidding.

And that’s about it. Weather wise day started out with a thick marine layer and glassy calm seas, and right now we’re under pleasant sunny skies with 65 degrees. We might not even get an easterly.

Weather forecast for the next few days is a bit strange – they’re forecasting patchy rain with no winds or seas. Hmm. We’ll see what that turns out to be I guess. According to Darn Glenn, after a rain is the best time of all to fish. We saw this in action last year when he tore out of here in rental just as everyone else was running in because of lightening. He’s goofy that way. But he *did* get fish that day.

So – use your boat bucks and test Glenn’s theory this week – should be fun.

Today again we didn’t have many boats out, though quite a few more than we’ve been having through the weekdays. But: nobody got skunked – each boat had at least a few brown rock fish. One boat nearly limited on browns, another caught a couple of lings off Soquel point.

Stripers made a pretty strong showing today – word came in that the few we reported earlier were just the tip of the iceberg: 15 were reported caught off the ship down by the beach just at twilight. That’s awesome, though if you want to try for these you should note that the rangers won’t let you out there that early – whoever was fishing today must have gotten lucky. Your best bet for a hassle free try at the stripers would be at New Brighton around the same time of day. Some 30 pounders were spotted over there today, though 20 pounds was as large as we heard as far as what was actually caught.

Today started off pretty nice for fishing – thick marine layer and extremely calm water. The breeze picked up around noon enough to make fishing difficult, but all in all a pretty nice day for fishing. And overall, things don’t look as bleak fishing wise as they did yesterday: it definitely helped having more people out there trying there luck.

It’s hard to tell, because we had *very* few boats out today – just one rental and a couple of privates. So again – not much of a sample, but here’s what we saw:

Jim pictured here caught this legal halibut and several rock cod on a late bite this afternoon. He was fishing swim baits off Capitola reef. At the moment, Jim is our highliner.

The other private boat we had out said it was a hard call for them – they were oscillating between Capitola and Lake Del Valle for today and opted for Capitola. They ended up being not too happy about the choice – they landed a bunch of small rock fish which they released as they weren’t targeting them.

The rental is still out – you can bet if they had a good day we’ll have another post.

Same kind of thing on the wharf today – literally *nobody* was fishing this afternoon – the only fishing we saw all day was a few guys who landed some jacksmelt this morning.

So – darn – it’s pretty hard to paint a rosey picture here other than to say that once again with so few people out, it’s hard to commit to saying that fishing is genuinely not good. But it kinda looks that way at the moment.

We have decent number of rentals reserved for tomorrow, so we’ll probably be able to be much more definitive after they have a go at it. Right now however it appears that this is one of those times where fishermen and women must pay their dues.

Another renter got caught by fish and game with a 21 inch (short) halibut – that’s a dollar ticket. Always remember to measure twice, keep once.

On the whole however, it seems that Sheriff Larry might be on to something – fishing seems to have improved slightly today. There has been small but definite uptick in rock cod and halibut today. Hopefully that’ll hang around into the weekend.

(In reality it is 23 inches, but shhh keep it a secret)

Anyway, there were only a few boats out today in Capitola, but fishing was actually not bad. Larry reports that he and his brother caught and released several diverse large rock fish in 38 feet of water in front of O’Neil’s, including vermillion and cabezon. They also hooked up a couple of legal flatties in 18 feet off New Brighton beach. Most fish were taken on dead anchovies.

So far still no sign of live bait. Still waiting. Still hoping.

Dan and Tina went fishing today and caught two limits of nice brown rock fish just outside the harbor as well. They were using anchovies and strips of squid and swim baits.

This sounds like a broken record (or a skipping CD) but: we continue to wait for bait. The water is still a bit too cool, so it’s likely we really need to see warmer water before we see bait. Our fingers are turning blue from all the crossing they’re doing. Hurry up already, little fish.

The halibut that were jumping were probably going after some pinheads – Boccie got into a few of them (not keepers) this morning.

There was nothing to report off the Capitola wharf today – nobody was fishing, probably because it was miserably cold this morning.

Still a few boats out so fingers remain crossed.

Boccie and Kevin continue the hunt: They got into a small number of pinhead anchovies today – nothing worth keeping but perhaps a good sign.

More as it happens.