WEATHER: We hit a new high of the year this week with the top number being 102 degrees on Thursday afternoon. The rest of the week we were seeing high 90's during the daytime and low 80's at night. There was very little wind early in the week but on Friday the breeze picked up a bit. No rain for the week, instead we had mostly sunny skies.

WATER: On the Sea Of Cortez we had water in the 81-84 degrees range, on the Pacific side of the Cape it was 67-68 degrees and from due south of the cape toward the southwest it was averaging 73-75 degrees. The cold water on the Pacific side was green as well, and the warm water on the Cortez side was nice and blue. Surface conditions were great all around early in the week. At the end of the week the swells began to pick up as a result of a storm that had built up to the southwest of us. Starting Friday the wind started getting stronger and the swells started getting larger. On the weekend the swells on the Pacific side were at 6-9 feet, causing surf to 20 feet, on the Cortez side the swells were less visible until they crashed on-shore, then they were dangerous.

BAIT: Large Caballito at the normal $3 per bait, small and large Mackerel at $3 per bait and plenty of mullet at $3 per bait. The large swells at the end of the week resulted in no Sardines being available.

FISHING:

BILLFISH: Just as quickly as the bite turned on last week for the Striped Marlin it turned off again. They were still being caught, but not in the numbers of last week. A good trip would result in two to three releases; most boats this week were lucky to get one release. The fish were scattered between the 95 spot and the Los Arcos area on the Pacific side, from one tow five miles offshore for the most part. There were also fish reported from up around the Punta Gorda area close to shore. There were plenty of fish being seen, but few of them were biting.. The fish that did bite were on a mix of lures and live bait.

YELLOWFIN TUNA: The numbers were still low for Yellowfin Tuna this past week, but there were some caught. Most of the fish were less than 20 pounds, and most of them were caught while blind trolling, not in the porpoise. Directly to the south and into the southwestern area were the best bets to find the Tuna this week. There were a lot of flags being flown this week, but most of them were for Bonita that were being caught directly in front of town.

DORADO: The Dorado bite continued to improve this week with most boats returning flying at least one or two flags for fish that ran up to 50+ pounds. A few boats really got into the fish and returned with limits for their anglers, but it did not happen very often. The warmer water on the Cortez side of the Cape had the largest fish, the numbers occurred to the south of us. At least a few of the large fish were being found up on the Pacific side as a few boats returned from the Golden Gate area with fish to 50 pounds, but no large numbers.

WAHOO: There were still a few Wahoo caught this week and there should be a few caught this coming week as well as the warm water stays with us. The fish I heard of this past week were from the Punta Gorda and Gorda Banks area.

INSHORE: The Snook disappeared and the bite for Snapper and Sierra as well as Yellowtail slowed along with it. Early in the week there was a concentration of Roosterfish to 50 pounds with most of them much smaller found just to the north of Chileno beach, but by the end of the week they had moved somewhere else. Most of the Pangas were working just outside for the Bonita and Dorado.

Notes: At the end of the month we are going on a short vacation so there will not be a report for the last week of June. Until next week, tight lines!