High winds kept most boats off the water or at least inshore at the beginning of the week. By Thursday conditions had improved and the epic bluefin bite continued near Point Sur, Carmel and the Davenport Fingers. Todd Fraser at Bayside Marine in Santa Cruz reported, “Anglers are catching tuna at the Fingers in 4,000 feet of water. The anglers who fished in the cold water on the inside did not find too many. The warm water is a little further out so go looking.” He added, ”There was one boat who hooked up near Carmel today and was fighting the fish for hours. The area around 36'53/122'31 and 36'54/121'25 has been producing some bluefin in the 60-120 pound range. The fish are still being caught from the surface to 150 feet down.” Conditions have varied during the past few weeks while this tuna bite has continued. A significant change may be coming though, and it remains to be seen how powerful the weather system turns out to be and what affect it will have big bluefin bite.

The bite was still going strong on Sunday. Conditions were decent with some gusty winds in the afternoon that became more of a nuisance towards evening. Monterey Bay Charters’ Tom Dolan on the Mega-Bite had two clients aboard intent on catching bluefin tuna while the fish are here. Client Chris Loops from Palo Alto is one of Dolan’s regulars and had even set up a home workout gym to prep for a big tuna fight. And, this day he was rewarded. It wasn’t easy though, according to Dolan. “We set out to go for tuna knowing odds were way against us. Took an hour at dawn to catch some live mackerel at Soquel Point then headed up coast towards the weather buoy. We got to 24 miles then searched for three hours.” Dolan recounted. “When are we gonna drop in?” the client asked. “Soon as I see something that makes sense,” Dolan replied. Dolan recounted they saw no jumpers or breezers but did spot a gigantic pod of feeding dolphins in the area. Finally he saw on blip on the sonar, dropped the gear, pulled a half circle and they were quickly rewarded with a hookup. Loops and his buddy Bredon Gertz worked together for the exhausting fight. When the tuna finally entered the final “deep circle of death” phase of the fight, Gertz was able to bring it boatside. Dolan was quite pleased with the day’s outcome saying, “Took two gaffs to get it over the rail. It was like textbook the way it happened.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization (NOAA) forecast indicates rain every day this week from Tuesday October 19 through Tuesday October 26. It looks like a real winter storm that includes a west swell increasing in size through the week up to nine feet at 10 seconds by Sunday. This might be the swan song for local bluefin fishing. The system looks like the beginning of a winter season pattern, with weather and waves generated from the Gulf of Alaska. If the winter-like pattern persists it will affect all our normal inshore species as well as the tuna with a premature movement out to deeper waters where the fish disperse. Though we are grateful for the possibility of significant rainfall during the destructive drought we are enduring, it would be almost tragic to see the historical big tuna bite end after these few weeks of mayhem, madness and for some the ultimate triumph of landing a triple-digit tuna in our own backyard.

JT Thomas, skipper for Go Fish Santa Cruz has been accommodating customer desires for rockfish and lingcod all week. Thomas is finding best success up the coast near Franklin Point and the Ano Nuevo area. “We’ve been steadily whacking them up by Franklin,” Thomas reported. “On Sunday the fish were slow to bite though. It took us nearly till noon to get our limits. I could see the fish fuzzed up on the scope but we couldn’t get any takers till I moved up to the third reef where big blacks were completely cooperative. We got 50 blacks of the large variety on our first drift, and topped off for limits on our second.” Thomas reminds us that the week of rain might not affect the bluefin bite at all, we will have to wait and see. In a significant observation Thomas also recounted his contact Sunday evening with a commercial buddy still fishing near Davenport. Apparently bluefin will bite in the rain. It was already raining hard at that time up the coast towards Davenport. The buddy had three tuna on the boat and was still fishing. For the upcoming week, Thomas expects to deal with conditions on a day-to day basis. “I’m going tomorrow, Wind looks good for the morning,” he said.