All those striped marlin that we were seeing last week that would not eat a bait decided to get hungry this week. Not only that, they decided to move closer to us! The bite was going off only one to four miles off the arch during the latter half of the week. There were marlin everywhere you looked, tailers here and there, jumpers everywhere and groups of fish schooled up. The largest group I saw was 15 fish within a 30 yard circle, two on the surface and the others just underneath. They were biting well on live and dead baits; we had hooked one on a live bait and were clearing a rigged dead bait, just letting it hang back about ten feet when it was attacked by a brightly lit striper! There were reports on the radio of a few small blue marlin being caught as well, but I don't have any hard information on them.

Some decent sized dorado were caught this week up in the warm water in the Sea of Cortez. The large fish were 40 to 50 pounds with fair numbers in the 20 pound class. Close to shore there were good numbers of small fish in the 6 to10 pound range. Most boats that got away from the marlin and made dorado their target were able to get a couple of fish per boat?Ķnot great numbers yet, but with some quality fish in there.

There were a few yellowtail and a few sierra caught inshore and the snapper bite dropped off.

Water temperature: 75 ??? 78
Air temperature: 72 ??? 99
Humidity: 55%
Wind: WNW 14 to 19 knts
Conditions: Clear
Visibility: 10 miles
Sunrise: 6:34 a.m. MST
Sunset: 8:05 p.m. MST