A rogue's gallery of Capitola locals display Saturday's catch of halibut.

Mild winds and calm seas made for fantastic fishing this past week. Local scores surged as anglers took advantage of the conditions. This weekend's forecast features light winds and a small swell, so fishing deeper water may be the ticket for continued success.

Jim Rubin on the Becky Ann took advantage of the flat, greasy calm seas and made the 30-minute run to fish the south side of the bay on Sunday. "We caught limits of reds and blues and jumbo olives to seven pounds," Rubin says. On Thursday, veteran local fisherman Chris Jahr fished with Captain Jimmy in the same area. Jahr and his group caught limits including 15 vermillion rockfish, blues, olives and black rockfish weighing up to six pounds each. Stagnaro's Sportfishing has been finding limits of rockfish on the south side of the bay on their day trips, but are doing equally well on the local reefs during their afternoon "Twilight Trips." Sunday's four-hour twilight run on the Velocity ended with 228 rockfish for the 26 anglers aboard, mostly reds, blues and brown rockfish, according to skipper Ken Stagnaro.

Most exciting is the increase of halibut being caught in the shallow inshore waters. " We're seeing fish caught from Capitola up to Five-Mile Beach," says Todd Fraser from Bayside Marine. "The halibut bite is in full swing now with the big females coming in to shallow water. I heard of scores ranging from 2-10 halibut a boat." Fraser measured one halibut caught this week at 46 inches, weighing a whopping 41 pounds! Ed Burrell at Capitola reports similar scores coming in from the locals and skiff anglers at the Capitola Wharf. Burrell says the fishing was good until the waves picked up. "We even had eight legal flatties caught from the Wharf early in the week, when the swell was down."

Tuna hunters have been scouting a large pool of warm water from 30-80 miles offshore. No albacore have been reported caught as yet, though one boat caught a small yellowtail while on the troll about 70 miles out. Warm water is pooling offshore, but we are not seeing the deep blue warm tuna current with defined breaks to the nutrient and bait-rich cool water.