WEATHER The weather was the big item of the week. Starting the week off was a movement of storm cells over the top of us from the mainland. These cells had plenty of thunder and lightning with them, to the point that the Port Captain closed the marina on Monday and Tuesday. The positive aspect of this was the fact that the rain was light and fairly steady, the type of rain that will soak into the desert instead of running off into the arroyos. Just as these storm cells moved out the feeder band of Tropical Storm (late Tropical Depression) Lowell moved in with winds steady at 30 mph with gusts to 45 mph and more light rains. This kept the port closed through Wednesday, and it did not open again until mid morning Thursday, too late for most of the charters as they had already cancelled trips for the day. With the movement of weather through the area the daytime temperatures dropped as well as the nighttime temps. Our nights ended up being a beautiful 72-75 degrees at the end of the week while the daytime highs did not get much more than 87 degrees, and with low humidity at that. Everyone has been saying how it feels like the middle of October this week!

WATER: Naturally the water was too rough for fishing until Thursday but the weather we experienced cooled off the surface temperatures a bit, as well as what we had on land. On the Pacific side the water was almost a steady 84 degrees with a little cooler areas near shore. On the Cortez side of the Cape it was averaging 86 degrees, overall down about 2 degrees from before the beginning of the week. The swells remained from the southwest until Friday when they began returning to their normal northwest direction. On the Pacific they were 6-8 feet when the port opened on Thursday but had dropped to 3-5 feet over the weekend. On the Cortez side they were averaging 2 feet less. With the light and steady rains we did not have much in the way of debris wash out of the arroyos but the water was a bit discolored close to the arroyos on both the Pacific and Cortez side on Thursday, clearing up by the weekend.

BAIT: Almost all the bigger baits this week were Caballito and Mullet at the normal $3 per bait. There were Sardinas available from a couple of boats locally but everyone had them up toward Palmilla. The price here was a bit higher than to the north as the boats here were charging $30 a bucket while it was only $25 a bucket up north.

FISHING:

BILLFISH: Striped Marlin continued to bite even though the water remained in the 84-degree range. It did not take much of a search on Friday to find the fish, they were still holding in the same area as last week, mostly on the Pacific side closer to shore, most within 7 miles of the beach. There was a concentration of fish on the Golden Gate Bank; that bodes well for next week as well. There was a scattering of Sailfish in the catches as well, and they were from the same areas. The Blue Marlin did not appear at the end of the week, hopefully they will start to show in numbers soon.

YELLOWFIN TUNA On Thursday and Friday there were reports of Yellowfin to 60 pounds being caught to the west side of the San Jaime Banks, but few fish reported from other areas.

DORADO Still mostly being caught on the Pacific side, the Dorado have been striking well on medium sized lures in brighter colors. Live bait dropped back behind a troll hooked fish resulted in many doubles on fish that averages 15 pounds with a few in the 40-pound class. Spotting the Frigate birds swooping on flying fish was the key to steady action on Dorado after the storms.

WAHOO I did not hear of any reports of Wahoo after the storms this week.

INSHORE: The swells kicked up by the storms made inshore fishing very iffy, most of the Pangas preferred to go out 5 miles or so for Dorado. A few of the Pangas that worked inside on the Cortez side reported decent action on Roosterfish to 35 pounds, nothing hot and heavy but steady fishing with live Mullet and Caballito.

NOTES: The desert is going to be beautiful after the nice rain we just had and hopefully I will get a chance to check it out this week. Until next week, tight lines!