BILLFISH: Striped marlin continued to dominate fishing at the Golden Gate Bank. Catch rates varied from between seventeen fish to two fish per day, depending on the length of time spent there and the experience of the anglers. Running to the diving pelicans and frigates and throwing a couple of live baits in among the feeding seals and marlin resulted in many hook-ups, both on marlin and on pelicans. The other day we released three marlin and three pelicans in an hour. Slow trolling live bait also worked very well.

Another area where the striped marlin began to show was just off of the lighthouse on the Pacific side. Along the flats at the point the bait has begun to stack up and many boats have been saving time by fishing there instead of making the run to the Golden Gate Bank.

YELLOWFIN TUNA: Yellowfin remained scarce this past week. A few football-sized fish are beginning to show up off of the Westin area on the Cortez side of the Cape just a few miles off shore, the same area where we had such a good time catching them on light tackle last year. Using live sardina as chum and bait resulted in catches of up to six fish per boat. There were also a few fish in the 15 to 20 pound range found among the porpoise off of Gray Rock late in the week, and the same type of action was occasionally found 8 to 10 miles off the beach on the way to the San Jaime Bank on the Pacific side.

DORADO: There were decent catches of dorado this week from the Pacific side of the Cape just a few miles off the beach. These were smaller fish averaging 12 pounds, while farther off shore at 10+ miles, the fish seemed to be larger. One boat came in with three dorado, all over 35 pounds.

INSHORE: Near the beach things have been very good. One roosterfish of 50+ pounds was caught and released just to the east of the lighthouse. Others are having a blast on small roosterfish from 5 pounds to 15 pounds.

The sierra bite is getting better with some very nice fish to 8 pounds being caught. A commercial panga had one about 12 pounds. A few nice sized pargo have been found among the rocks on the Pacific side and some good grouper to 30 pounds were brought in as well.

Water temperature: 73 - 82
Air temperature: 52 - 82
Humidity: 74%
Wind: NNE 5 to 6 knots
Conditions: Mostly Cloudy
Visibility: 5 miles
Sunrise: 7:02 a.m. MST
Sunset: 5:50 p.m. MST