WEATHER: We had a week with no influences from storms finally! Well, with the passing of Olaf we did get some very nice cool weather early last week, so nice in fact that we felt that we might just be getting into the fall weather pattern, but that was a short lived wish. At the beginning of the week we had our nighttime lows in the low 70's with low humidity as well, and light breezes, perfect evening weather. The daytime highs were in the mid 80's and also with low humidity, even though we had a fair amount of cloud cover. Later in the week things warmed up almost 10 degrees across the board. At the beginning of the week the wind was from the southwest, then it started to shift around and come from the northwest at 15-20 knots in the afternoons with lighter winds in the mornings. In the afternoons late in the week, Thursday and Friday in particular, the wind shifted hard and blew at about 15-20 knots from the east, surprising everyone.

P.S. Update: Since writing the report an area of disturbed weather to the southeast has been designated as Tropical Storm Patricia and is expected to move over or very near the southern tip of the peninsula (that's us!) on Tuesday evening with winds to 50 knots, gusting to 60 knots, and it looks like there is a lot of rain with it.

WATER: The water was choppy almost all week on the Pacific side and in the afternoons on the Cortez side of the Cape this week. At times it looked as if there were sheep feeding all over the place out there as everywhere you looked there were whitecaps. I was fishing on Monday and when we went out in the morning toward the Gorda Banks the water was perfect, when we started to come back in the afternoon we were taking an occasional dose of water on the fly bridge of the 40' Blackwatch I was on. The same thing happened for boats that went to the Pacific side later in the week as they faced winds from the east on their way back, hugging the beach helped them a little bit. Early in the week the water temperatures close to shore on the Pacific side were cool at 77-80 degrees between the beach and the offshore banks while the water on the Sea of Cortez remained a steady 85 degrees everywhere. This changed late in the week and on the weekend the warm water from the Sea of Cortez had wrapped its way around the Cape so that we had 83-85 degree water everywhere on the Cortez side as well as from the San Jaime and Golden Gate Banks to the beach on the Pacific side. Outside the Banks the water dropped quickly to 79-80 degrees. Surprisingly enough, the water on the Cortez side of the Cape was slightly green, even though it was the warmer water for most of the week.

BAIT: Almost all the larger baits this week were Caballito and mullet at the normal $3 per bait and they were occasionally hard to come by, perhaps the product of coming off the full moon. There were Sardinas available at San Jose if you got there early, at the normal $25 per bucket.

FISHING:

BILLFISH: The billfish bite dropped off quite a bit this past week, perhaps due to the full moon. There were Sailfish and Striped Marlin found close to home and close to shore, just not in any number and the ones that were found were not in a very hungry mood. We should have been seeing more Black and Blue Marlin than we have been, but once again the full moon had an effect on that. Now that we are in the last quarter perhaps things will get better with these larger billfish. Don't get me wrong; there are still Marlin and Sailfish out there, just not in great numbers. There have been all species caught everyday, with the exception of Black Marlin, just no really large specimens or in large numbers.

YELLOWFIN TUNA: This was a nice week for a number of boats that went out and got into the Tuna. The bite got quite a bit better late in the week with fish showing up close to home and in a feeding mood. As close as two miles from the arch there were pods of porpoise holding fish that averaged 30 pounds. We had clients on two days bring in Tuna that weighed over 100 pounds, one of them scaled out at 150 pounds. The rough water conditions extended the fight as did the fact the fish were caught on #30 test line. Live bait was the key to the larger fish while the smaller fish often turned their noses up at normal sized lures and demanded small hootchies in red or pink. At the end of the week the Tuna had worked their way to 24 miles offshore toward the southeast.

DORADO: Dorado were the fish of the week as the action was wide open on fish ranging in size from 4 pounds to 25 pounds with an occasional 45 pound fish tossed in. I heard of one boat that landed a fish over 70 pounds but did not see the fish or a photo. Almost all the action was on the Pacific side where the water was a bit on the rough side. To my surprise it seemed that dark colored lures worked better this week for those using artificial lures.. Many of the boats opted to catch a few skipjack and chunk them up for chum, and then using strips for bait as the Dorado showed up. It was no problem at all to limit out, and with the action this hot and heavy many of the boats went overboard and caught three or four time their limit (two Dorado per angler). There were scattered Dorado offshore as well, and boats that caught Dorado limits early and headed offshore for something else still caught them 20 miles out.

WAHOO: We still had a decent Wahoo bite happening this week as fish averaging 30 pounds were caught on both sides of the Cape. Working structure was the best method, back and forth across peaks and drop-offs with heavy lures. Trolling at a higher than normal speed kept many of the nuisance small Dorado off the hooks. 9.5 to 11 knots worked for us, and we still got larger Dorado as well as Striped Marlin hook-ups at that speed.

INSHORE: There was a three day showing of football Yellowfin and decent sized Dorado off of the Cabo Del Sol beaches during the middle of the week and Pangas that made the run to San Jose for Sardinas did well with plenty of both species of fish showing up in the catches. There were even a few Wahoo caught this way. Those willing to work their way offshore and brave the seas did well trolling lures for the smaller Tuna and a few Pangas managed to get Yellowfin to 60 pounds with live bait when the fish were close to shore. Most of the Pangas focused on Dorado as the water conditions made working very close to the beach uncomfortable.

NOTES: The hills and desert are nice and green and there are flowers coming up everywhere. If you are coming down, take a day and get out into the surrounding area to check it out. There are plenty of companies that do excursions into the hills. On the fishing side of things, it's finally happening, the Tuna are here and have been biting well, there are plenty of Dorado around, and in my mind that means that as the new moon approaches the large Marlin should be starting to feed. We have the bait in Tuna and Dorado, the water temperature is right and the moon should be perfect! Lets keep our fingers crossed! This weeks report was written to the blues of Taj Mahal on the 2000 Sony Music release "The Best Of Taj Mahal". My great thanks to Tom Hispanski for bringing me this CD as well as the ones I have been using for my reports for the past three weeks, and the one I will use next week, thanks Tom I hope Herman gets a Marlin on the next trip! Until next week, tight lines