Santa Cruz Fish Die-off: 9/16-9/20/13

   I was told by two different people that sometime this last week there was a big fish die-off in the SC-Capitola area.  One guy told me he went down to the beach and saw a bunch of "monk fish" (the way he described them, I think they were "eels") and several good-sized ling cod.   He said he collected and ate some of the monk fish, but left the lings.   Another guy told me he saw something like surf perch on the beach, he described them as being flat and small.

   Probably related: This week there have been hundreds of birds working the water just off the beach.   I suppose the huge amount of bait fish in the water could have used all the oxygen.  And the water was murky brown in areas between the harbor and the mile buoy on Friday.

Thanks for the report tom, hope it will clear up by next weekend for the tourney

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I was just out at Capitola this morning, saw a few of what looked like black/blue rock cod on the beach and one fish that looked like a cross between an eel and a ling?

It's a red tide.......I wouldn't eat those fish off the beach, though the toxins in the red tide algae bloom allegedly do not build up in 'edible' portions of fish.

The red tide is dissipated now thanks to the rain and wind we got yesterday and today.

Bushy

Was out yesterday out of SC.  No sign of red tide.  No sign of butts either and damn that south wind blew us off the water.  The rockfish were on a swimbait bite though.

-Allen

The bait was so thick that they had the harbor pumping areators over night last week.