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Spear Fishing is generally good in the Monterey Bay area. Seasonally, we have abundant halibat, tuna, white sea bass, lingcod, etc. All of these fish can reach 40 lbs or more and they make for a great dinner party.
A few suggestions for spear fishing:
• It’s better to spear one large fish than several small ones
• Have the right tool for the job—don’t wound fish. Before you spear a fish make sure that you plan to keep it and eat it.
• A spearfisher who return from the water with no fish did better than one who speared a small fish.
• Avoid shooting the small rockfish—they reproduce slowly and are too friendly to offer much sport in their pursuit.
• Know the fish and game laws—report poachers immediately.
• If you want to get into spearfishing do it right—take a hunting and collecting class.
• Try spear fishing on SCUBA first. SCUBA will enable you to perfect your skills and build your confidence. If you are serious about this sport you will probably be more successful free diving. SCUBA is relatively loud underwater—free diving is quiet and the fish are easier to approach. Either way it’s lots of fun. Enjoy.

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History and Tourist Attractions:
The Monterey Peninsula was one of the first areas in California to be settled by Europeans. The Presidio and the Carmel Mission were founded in 1770. It is also the birthplace of Monterey Jack cheese, one of only four cheeses to be created in the United States. From about 1900 until the 1940s, Monterey was bustling with sardine canneries. Today the sardines are gone, replaced by schools of tourists, and the town’s primary industry is tourism.

For a taste of Monterey and California History, visit the Monterey State Historic Park. The Maritime Museum of Monterey has shipping exhibits and a beautiful first-order Fresnel lens that used to be in the Point Sur lighthouse. Visit Fishermans’ Wharf, a popular California tourist attraction and home to almost a dozen restaurants and souvenir shops, as well as a generous number of walk up fish stands. Go all the way to the end to enjoy the bay view from the observation deck. Glass-bottom boat tours, whale-watching tours and fishing expeditions leave from the wharf. Walk from Fishermans’ Wharf to Cannery Row (a half hour stroll) and enjoy the scenery. There is no shortage of places to sit and take it all in if your feet get tired. Along the way you are likely to see California sea lions (often hanging out on the rocky jetty by the Coast Guard Station), harbor seals and sea otters.

Visit Cannery Row, once home to sardine canneries, now home to shops and restaurants. For Steinbeck fans, there is a small Steinbeck museum in the Wing Chong Building. Much of Cannery Row is not built up, giving it a rumpled kind of charm. The first several blocks coming from the Wharf still have the ruins of old canneries. Near the Aquarium, murals of Monterey history line the street. Notice the three small white buildings set off from the street. They are outfitted to look like the residence of cannery row workers of different nationalities—Spanish, Japanese and Filipino.

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Don’t miss the Monterey Bay Aquarium
At last count, the Aquarium was home to almost 300,000 individual plants and animals. They exhibit approximately 550 species. Divers catch some of the animals using hand nets or plastic bags. For other species, they may use hook and line, special trawl nets or traps. Scientists at Moss Landing Marine Laboratory bring the Aquarium many of their midwater fishes, which they catch in trawl nets from their research vessel Point Sur. Deep-sea animals are collected by scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, using a mechanical slurp gun on a remotely operated submersible vehicle (ROV) that can go as deep as 4,000 ft (1,219 m). And commercial fishermen bring them some of their fishes, octopuses and other animals.

The Kelp Forest exhibit holds 335,000 gallons of water (approximately one third of a million gallons or 1,522,910 liters). They were the first aquarium in the world to exhibit a living kelp forest.

The Outer Bay exhibit holds one million gallons (4,546,000 liters) of sea water. The main view into this exhibit is the world’s largest window, 56 ft long and 17 ft high (about 17 m long and 5 m high). It was welded together seamlessly from five pieces of acrylic 13 in (33 cm) thick.

For further information, visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium website.

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Web Cams: Being located at the edge of Silicon Valley, our coastline is monitored by several mostly 24-hour web cams which you can use to check coastal conditions before you decide to head for the water. This is a list of useful views from Santa Cruz to Big Sur.

• Cowell’s Beach #1
• Cowell’s Beach #2
• Steamer Lane
• Santa Cruz Beach and Wharf
• Santa Cruz Harbor
• Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Monterey Fisherman’s Wharf
• Big Sur

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Monterey Bay Tides

A tide chart for the current month from the City of Santa Cruz.

See also our current Dive Conditions page for up-to-date information on water conditions in the Monterey Bay.