Once the first northwest swell of the year hits, you know it's not summer anymore. We are firmly in the grip of fall conditions now. Ocean salmon season ended last week, on October 7. The season is still open for saltwater salmon north of Pigeon Point and on up to Horse Mountain in Humboldt County.

Inland waters are fishable for salmon however, and there have been some good scores from the Sacramento and American Rivers this past week. Local fishermen Joe and Shane Baxter, pictured above floated the Sacramento with guide Roger Keeling recently and were rewarded with limits of fish for their efforts. Though the fish are getting dark as they transit the freshwater, they are still good for smoking, and the mature roe makes great bait for steelhead fishing later in the winter. Plus, they are a blast to catch!

In other salmon news, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is currently reviewing reports prior to approving a new hatchery project on the San Joaquin River, near the Friant Dam. A successful hatchery in that area could go a long way in restoring the once abundant population of anadromous salmon in the greater Sacramento drainage system. John McManus, executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, commented on the project this week. "The San Joaquin River once produced close to a million salmon annually and it's time to bring them back, which the salmon conservation hatchery is designed to help do. It's about time we get California's native salmon back in the San Joaquin River where they thrived for untold thousands of years until the river was dried out by human development. Salmon are very resilient and will thrive again in the San Joaquin River if they get the water they need."

In our local waters, rockfishing continues to be the best bet, though a few halibut were caught last week, near South Rock and Five-Mile beach, according to Todd Fraser from Bayside Marine.

Stagnaro's Sportfishing had a great weekend operating two boats now from the Santa Cruz Small Craft harbor. Ken Stagnaro reports, "Both boats have been scoring easy limits of really nice blacks and blues with a few nice yellows and reds mixed in. Friday morning Velocity limited quickly on a half-day trip outside of Mitchell's cove in 60 feet. We stopped the boat and the fish piled under and wouldn't leave!"

Offshore, the tuna hunters took advantage of conditions last weekend and a few of the lucky ones found a new batch of fish off Monterey, some 60 miles southwest of Santa Cruz. Captain Tom Joseph on the Sara Bella trusted his instincts and found the right spot. "My plan was to tack northwest towards the Guide, but we talked with a couple other boats above me who had no life or fish. We made a quick decision, and tacked south along the break. At 11am I saw some jumpers and we hooked a double. We had lots of jumpers that were crashing bait, then hooked a quad called in a few other boats. We were plugged by three pm with 25 fish. All big fish 20 to 30-plus pounds. The other four or five boats in the area also did good, including the Kahuna out of Moss."