WEATHER: This week saw partly to mostly cloudy skies in the Cape areas. Daytime temperatures were in the high 70's to low 80's and the nighttime lows were as low as 58 degrees early in the week, raising to the low 60's near the end of the week. Winds were light for the most part with a slight kick up in speed later in the afternoons.

WATER: Water conditions remained much the same as last week with only a degree drop across the area. This means that on the Pacific side of the Cape most of the water was around 72-73 degrees with a few spots of 70 degree water, while on the Cortez side the water was 73-75 degrees up to Punta Gorda, and later in the week it dropped to 70 degrees past there..

BAIT: A repeat of last week, Caballito and Mackerel were available at the normal $3 per bait, most of the Caballito were small ones, the mackerel were larger. You could still catch plenty of Mackerel at the Golden Gate Bank if you ran out. Sardinas were available at Palmilla for an average of $25 a bucket.

FISHING:

BILLFISH: There was no change from last weeks situation for the Striped marlin, still the fish of the week, they continued to bite at the Golden Gate Bank. Catch rates varied from between 10 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. We had clients on Saturday release 6 nice fish. Slow trolling live bait also worked very well. Drifting with live bait set deep did not seem to do as well at the Gate this week. 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. The fishing has not been quite as good, but that should change soon. Elsewhere, there have been a few fish caught on the Cortez side of the Cape, but most of the fish seen in that area have been sleepers.

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, the same area where we had such a good time catching them on light tackle last year, just a few miles off shore. Using live Sardinas as chum and bait resulted in catches of up to 6 fish per boat. There were also a few fish 15-20 pounds found among Porpoise off of Gray Rock late in the week, and the same type of action was occasionally found 8-10 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. For some reason these seemed to be fish that averaged 12 pounds. Farther off shore at 10 or more miles the fish seemed to be bigger, one boat came in with three Dorado, all of them over 35 pounds. Slow trolling live bait seemed to work best on the Pacific side. On the Cortez side there was fair action up around Punta Gorda about two miles off the beach. Again, slow trolling live bait worked best, but pulling lures at 8 knots or more also resulted in fish being brought in.

WAHOO: What Hoo?

INSHORE: The Sierra bite is picking up and the fish are very nice size, between 8 and 10 pounds when you find the right areas. There are a few nice Yellowtail starting to pop up occasionally off of the Rocky points as well as some Pargo to 25 pounds right in the rocks. Many of the Pangas have been working just offshore for Dorado and Striped marlin and doing fairly well.

NOTES: As you can see from the report, there was very little change this week from last week as far as the fishing went. One change that happened was the rise in price of fishing licenses. A daily license now costs 140 pesos, a rise of 10 pesos, a weekly is now 290 pesos compared to 260 pesos and a yearly costs 540 pesos as opposed to 500 pesos. The whales are still out there and are a lot of fun to watch. I spent a total of 5 days visiting family this week, vacationing in sub-freezing conditions, now I know why I have spent the past 23 years in the tropics! Have fun everyone, and tight lines until next week!