WEATHER: We had mostly sunny skies at the start of the week with a few scattered spits of rain on Thursday as clouds moved in for a couple of days. It cleared on Saturday and then another cell of clouds moved over us bringing some wind with it. Our daytime highs were in the high 80's and the nighttime lows were in the low 70's.

WATER: It seems as if the water temperatures across the area cooled by several degrees this week. On the Cortez side of the Cape we saw 80 degrees next to the beach and to two miles out, past there it dropped to 76-77 degrees. On the Pacific side the same thing was going on close to the beach with the temperature around 78-79 degrees and outside of the two mile distance dropping to 76 degrees from the north end of the San Jaime Bank and northward. To the west of the Cape there was a plume of warm water that averaged 80 degrees and extended across the San Jaime Bank and 10 miles to the south of there, then bent sharply to the southwest. Surface conditions were great on both sides of the Cape early in the week but at the end of the week the winds had caused steeper seas with quite a bit of wind chop on top.

BAIT: Bait this week was mostly Caballito but there were some Mackerel showing up from the bait boats. The prices remained at $3 per bait and there were some Sardinas available in San Jose at $25 a bucket.

FISHING:

BILLFISH: We had scattered Striped Marlin showing on both sides of the Cape with a lot of small ones showing up, and by small I mean less than 50 pounds in weight. There were groups of Stripers to be seen on the surface in numbers as high as 25 fish per group, but they were not very interested in eating anything. A few boats were able to release two fish per trip, but they were the exception, not the norm. Early in the week there was a flurry of action on Blue and Black Marlin to 400 pounds close to shore on the Pacific side in the warm water band. Feeding on small Dorado and skipjack, they surprised and tormented a lot of the boats that had changed over to smaller tackle for the Dorado and Striped Marlin.

YELLOWFIN TUNA: The best action I heard of for the week was at the Gorda Banks. Using Sardinas as bait and light flouro-carbon leader, many of the boats were able to get two or three fish to 100 pounds drifting over the high spots on both the inner and outer bank. At the end of the week school sized fish averaging 25 pounds were found off of Palmilla point, and once again Sardinas were the key to the action.

DORADO: he water has cooled a bit and the numbers of Dorado have dropped off. Most of the boats are averaging 4-10 fish with a lot of small ones in the catch. A few of the boats have lucked out finding floating debris and have recorded great catches on fish averaging 25 pounds, but these were few and far between. The best action on Dorado has been along the shore on the Pacific side and out on the 95 spot to the east.

WAHOO: Surprising as it is, this seems to have been the best Wahoo season in years as boats are still getting multiple fish each day if they focus their efforts on these speedy razor toothed fish. Most of the fish have been found to the north of Palmilla and up around the East Cape but floating debris has held numbers as well. The fish have been smaller than average with most of them ranging in size from 6 to 20 pounds.

INSHORE: In a repeat of last week, the Pangas have been having good luck on the Cortez side for large Sierra and there have been a few large Roosterfish found on the Pacific side. Most of the inshore action has been with snapper and small Roosterfish as well as Dorado.

NOTES: The Whales are showing up in decent numbers now, there are plenty of Striped Marlin around (even if they are not eating right now), there are still Dorado and Yellowfin as well as Wahoo, the weather is great and the holidays are here, what more do we need? My friend Capt. Darcy completed a Darcy Slam the other day with a #35 Striped Marlin, #6 Wahoo, #8 Dorado, #6 Yellowfin and a #8 Sierra. So Darcy, is it the size of the fish or the variety that make it a slam? LOL!! This weeks report was written to a variety of songs from the reggae guitar master Ernest Ranglin, and I replayed "Stop That Train" about 10 times! Until next week, tight lines!