The top area for targeting both rockfish and lingcod has been a stretch of water from Salt Point down to Fort Ross. "We're seeing huge schools of fish in 60 to 110 feet of water and they're very aggressive," said Powers. "On a typical day, we'll start out fishing white feather jigs for the rockfish, then switch over to 8 to 10 ounce chrome hex bars for the lingcod."

On Friday, August 23, the New Sea Angler managed full limits of rockfish and lingcod to 22 pounds for a light load of 12 passengers. Previous trips during the week also produced full limits of both species and the action continued through the weekend with a slight drop in the lingcod scores.

"We brought in full limits of rockfish and 34 lingcod to 20 pounds for 30 anglers on Saturday," said Powers. "Sunday produced full limits of rockfish again and we also had 28 lingcod to 22 pounds for 24 anglers."

The rockfish have been a wide variety of blacks, blues, coppers, china cod, gopher and olive rockfish. "As long as ocean conditions cooperate, we should see similar action throughout the next couple months," said Powers. "This type of fishing is an absolute blast because the shallow water allows us the chance to fight big fish on much lighter gear than we normally use for lingcod of this quality."

"The rockfish and lingcod fishing has been incredible this week," confirmed Mike Harbarth of Aggressor Adventures Sportfishing. Harbarth runs the six pack Calico out of Bodega Bay offering a variety of rockfish, salmon and albacore fishing adventures.

Harbarth said they have limited out on both rockfish and lingcod every trip during the past week and he also agreed the quality of the lingcod has been spectacular. "Just about every ling is a quality fish in the 10 to 15 pound class and we're seeing several 20 pounders plus on most days," he explained.

"As for the rockfish, it's been a mix of quality black and blue rockfish along with vermilions, coppers and china cod."

Terminal tackle is similar on the Calico, but they tend to just stick with the shrimp flies. "We're using two white flies above a 4 to 8 ounce torpedo sinker in 60 to 80 feet of water," said Harbarth. "We haven't had to break out the big bars for the lings because most days, we're limiting out on the lingcod before we have our rockfish limits."

Not only are rockfish and lingcod on tap, but there's been some outstanding halibut action and fishing pressure is almost non-existent. "We decided to do a little halibut scouting trip Sunday evening with my deckhand and my nephew," said Powers. "We ended up bagging full limits of halibut to 32 pounds between 5:00 and 7:00 pm.

The halibut were taken at the Estero and Tomales Bar. "The average fish was probably around 15 pounds," added Powers. "We caught everything drifting live shiners from the high slack tide to the beginning of the outgoing tide."