Capitola and Santa Cruz Boat Rentals

Capitola: Wow nice catch

Capitola Boat and Bait — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:28:30 +0000

Jose and friends only fished for two hours today, but managed to bring in two limits of rock cod with a couple nice browns and grass cod and a legal ling! They were using just plain frozen anchovies on a rock cod rig fishing the edge of the Capitola reef.

Yesterday we had a boat out that fished all day - he came in with three vermillion and a couple decent browns.

By all accounts, nice catch for this time of year! This weekend is the last one for rock cod - if you’ve been hankering to get out there, last call!

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Capitola: Wow nice catch

Capitola: Hyunku and Jiyoung

Capitola Boat and Bait — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:14:25 +0000

All I can say is it was a slow day.

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Capitola: Hyunku and Jiyoung

Capitola: Not so much here, but….

Capitola Boat and Bait — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:29:49 +0000

On the wharf there was not much happening today - just some bullheads some sand soles. And out of 6 boats, three came in with rock cod, one had a decent vermillion. One boat was using the Little Skipper gps, and it got one limit of rock cod for two people (they released 10 small rock cod). Season’s winding down - next weekend is the last weekend for rock cod fishing, so definitely last call here folks.

Now, there’s some other stuff - see the picture?? The boys - Jim, Frank, JoJo, and Ed went to Cabo San Lucas last week and what you see here is a sample. Out of three days fishing, they got 20 dorado (biggest about 30 pounds), 4 yellowfin tuna in the 40-50 pound range, and Jim got one wahoo at about 40 pounds. If you like marlin, it was wide open (but they weren’t targeting it). Fishing is RED HOT down there right now - Ed didn’t see any boats flying a skunk flag. So - if you wanna get some big fish - pretty much go south is the name of the game.

We’ll try to put together a photo gallery from the trip sometime in the next week.

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Capitola: Not so much here, but....

Santa Cruz: The finish line is in sight

Capitola Boat and Bait — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:09:23 +0000

Here’s Mark with a couple of nice lings he caught using live mackerel off South Rock today. He jigged the mackerel this morning out in the same area using a bait jig. Just a reminder: rock fishing season ends on November 30th, so really there are only a couple of weekends left. This weekend is supposed to be summer like - maybe reaching into the 70’s - so if you want to get one last one in before the end, this weekend is probably a pretty good idea.

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Santa Cruz: The finish line is in sight

Capitola: Raining cats and dog sharks

Capitola Boat and Bait — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:47:23 +0000

Here are Chris and Alex with the four foot dog shark they caught off the wharf just now. They were using strips of mackerel that Ed jigged up the other day on a slider setup and fishing just behind the bait shop. Someone fishing in closer today had one on too but it broke off.

The bait situation is interesting - there are still some pelicans diving on bait both inside and outside the marina. Interesting, because the wind waves capping up to 2-3 feet and the water is pretty stirred up from the weather. We’re not arguing though - having bait around is always good.

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Capitola: Raining cats and dog sharks

Santa Cruz: Lings hopping out of the water up there

Capitola Boat and Bait — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:24:24 +0000

Here’s Terry with the catch he got riding with Sheriff Larry up by south rock. The lings were 25 and 27 inches, and they caught them using live sardines on a halibut rig off south rock. They also brought in a very nice vermillon along with a brown and a couple blacks. Seas up there were great all morning, though the wind is starting to come up this afternoon. It’s still great in Capitola.

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Santa Cruz: Lings hopping out of the water up there

Capitola: Whales, fish, beautiful weather - perfect fishing conditions

Capitola Boat and Bait — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:50:49 +0000

Here’s Ian, Anthony, and Antonio with part of their two limits of rock cod for this morning. Ian has been coming here at least two days a week for the last three weeks and had been getting a few cod each time. Today he went out with the little skipper GPS and big. They were fishing outside the yellow buoy using rock cod jigs with strips of squid.

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.

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Capitola: Whales, fish, beautiful weather - perfect fishing conditions

Santa Cruz: Ling cod madness off south rock

Capitola Boat and Bait — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:49:22 +0000

Sheriff Larry reports that he’s got three legal lings on board, and that he lost something huge using live sardines - all in the south rock area. Some sardines were jigged off the mile reef in Capitola, and some were from Bocci in the harbor. Ocean’s been beautiful, even for up the coast - the seas have been down and it’s been warm with a light breeze.

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Santa Cruz: Ling cod madness off south rock

Capitola: Wharf fishing is pretty fun

Capitola Boat and Bait — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:38:32 +0000

Here’s Cathy with one of the jacksmelt we’ve seen come up on the wharf today. She caught this next to the fish tank using bits of anchovies on a surf leader setup. She’s also fishing for mackerel on a bait jig with a bobber.

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.

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Capitola: Wharf fishing is pretty fun

Capitola: Whales, fish, and little skipper finds the fish

Capitola Boat and Bait — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:28:03 +0000

Only two boats out today, but it was pretty productive for both.

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.

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Capitola: Whales, fish, and little skipper finds the fish

Capitola: Late start poses no problems for the master

Capitola Boat and Bait — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:59:58 +0000

Here’s Ed with a beautiful 27 inch lingcod. He caught this off Soquel point outside the yellow buoy using a live mackerel on a halibut rig. He had encounters with a few others - a 21 incher that he released, and something bigger than the 27 incher that he, in fact, …farmed.

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

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Capitola: Late start poses no problems for the master

Capitola: Check this out

Capitola Boat and Bait — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:30:01 +0000

Here’s Jenna with the 24 inch halibut she landed in the surfline off the wharf today. She was using live mackerel on a dead man rig and had jigged the mackerel earlier with a bait jig.

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.

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Capitola: Check this out

Santa Cruz: South Rock continues to shine

Capitola Boat and Bait — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:16:05 +0000

Pat and Harvey fished with Sheriff Larry today and caught limits of lings to 14 pounds along with several nice vermillion. Lings are still going off up there. They were getting them on live sardines, which you can get plenty of just outside the harbor. Bocci also has a nice receiver full.

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

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Santa Cruz: South Rock continues to shine

Santa Cruz: Lots of Lings at South Rock

Capitola Boat and Bait — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:23:55 +0000

A boat just came into the harbor reporting a bounty of lingcod off south rock today.

Also - Boccie scored big on anchovies last night off the cement ship. There’s lots of bait to be had in the harbor right now.

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Santa Cruz: Lots of Lings at South Rock

Capitola: Roar

Capitola Boat and Bait — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:59:57 +0000

Ed caught this greater-than-36-inch leopard shark off the wharf on live mackerel on a dead man setup. In between getting a couple boats out he noticed that his rod was doubled over. A few customers had to wait a few minutes while he landed it - Pete helped with the crab net. It was pretty fun - it was a fighter.

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!

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Capitola: Roar

Capitola: The lurking giants awake

Capitola Boat and Bait — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:48:07 +0000

Justin caught this 30 inch ling in the Capitola reef kelp beds along with some grass and brown rock cod. He and his buddy were using mostly swim baits which is what the ling came in on - they were also using frozen anchovies. The rock cod bit on both.

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!

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Capitola: The lurking giants awake

Capitola: Whoa - flatties from the wharf

Capitola Boat and Bait — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:52:45 +0000

Well guess what - here’s Ed with a couple of flatties he just caught today off the wharf. He was pretty happy (and surprised) about it. He was using a bait jig with a bobber with little pieces of mackerel (to catch mackerel). He hooked a small mackerel and put it on a dead man setup, lobbed it out, and about 5 minutes later he had a 24 inch flattie. Then he lobbed out another one and had another in less than 5 minutes! That was just about an hour ago, and right at the hoist! Pretty cool. Hopefully there are a bunch more there. He’s getting makerel like crazy off the wharf right now, so we’ll see.

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.

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Capitola: Whoa - flatties from the wharf

Capitola: Whoops

Capitola Boat and Bait — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:45:40 +0000

This is from yesterday - here’s Chris and Tom with their catch of brown rock cod. They were fishing off Soquel point outside the yellow buoy in 75 feet of water using shrimp fly jigs with squid and anchovies. They were doing best with anchovies in the morning, but did well in the afternoon with squid.

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Capitola: Whoops

Capitola: Darn Swell

Capitola Boat and Bait — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:56:06 +0000

Here’s Sergio with a guitar skate that he got next to the fish tank using shrimp on a surf leader setup. Elsewhere on the wharf today, people were still getting some mackerel, perch, and kingfish - mostly on shrimp, though mackerel were coming up on cut up mackerel with a bobber.

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.

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Capitola: Darn Swell

Capitola: Rock cod inside, tuna and bonita outside

Capitola Boat and Bait — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:47:37 +0000

Here’s Dave and Kelly with some of the rock cod they caught today fishing the mile reef with squid on shrimp fly rigs. We had two boats out today - the other boat had about 15 browns with a few really nice ones and the rest medium. They were fishing Adam’s reef and the mile reef. The also came in with half an ice chest full of mackerel - medium to large.

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

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Capitola: Rock cod inside, tuna and bonita outside