Since the atmospheric river storms passed through recently, we have been blessed with some beautiful conditions on Monterey Bay, with sunny skies, light winds and a good number of calm sea condition days. With rockfish season closed, and halibut off to their wintertime deep spots, local anglers are looking for alternatives to keep their lines wet, fridges full and their passions satisfied. The tug is the drug. Happily, there are quite a few alternatives for wintertime fishing.

Top of the list is crabbing, especially for the delectable Dungeness. There’s plenty of crab crawling in 120 to 200 feet of water out there on the bay. The favored locations seem to be holding steady, namely the flat areas at our canyon edges. Recreational anglers are  allowed to use enclosed crab pots for multi-day soaks now, so the payoff for setting a string is much improved compared to the open hoop net technique.

Those same areas are also perfect habitat for a variety of flatfish, namely sand dabs, petrale  and sand sole, as well as starry flounder. All are very edible fish, some even consider the dabs and sole as delicacies. Common knowledge for our area is that halibut move to deeper waters of the bay to feed over the winter. But, we always seem to have a few halibut caught here and there in wintertime. This year we’re seeing an increase in the number of flatties reported during the cold months. Daniel Escobar from Santa Cruz Boat Rentals on the Municipal Wharf reported, “There’s a lot of males running around in 90-100 feet of water. I was drifting a frozen anchovy in 90 feet when I got this one! It fought pretty good!” Those males typically start moving in to the 60 and 70 foot depths by March or April and move even more shallow as we transition to summer. Hopefully the current numbers reported by Escobar are an indication of an early arrival and another great halibut year in 2026.

For more adventurous boaters, there’s always a chance for more exotic fish, if they are willing to go hunting. There’s still a chance of finding bluefin tuna, fishing from 10-30 miles offshore. We would not be surprised at all to hear that big bluefins can be present in our area year-round. It mainly depends on the amount of bait holding in those offshore waters, with water temperatures being a secondary factor. Remember also that one boat found big bonito about 10 miles out of Moss Landing while dropping flat fall jigs just as December was drawing to a close.