Weather
Two weeks in a row now we have had rain for at least one day, and a decent plant watering rain at that, not the window spotting stuff we normally get. On Wednesday of this week we received over a 1/2 inch during the day and almost the same that night. The rest of the week was partly cloudy to mostly cloudy. Our nights were as low as 58 degrees while the days were averaging 80 degrees. We had two days of strong winds that kedpt most of the fleet working close to shore on the Cortez side of the Cape, but that was all right as that was also where most of the fish were found.
Water
Water temperatures on the Cortez were in the 74-75 degree range while on the Pacific side north of a line between the Cape and the San Jaime Bank it cooled off to 71-72 degrees. Tuesday and Friday of this week the wind was blowing stgrongly enough from the northwest that the Pacific side was extremely uncomfortable to fish. The rest of the week water conditions on the surface were good on the Pacific, but the fish were scarce. Conditions on the Sea of Cortez were much better, but once you got north of Punta Gorda the wind started to pick up.
Bait
Caballito were the bait of the week at the ususal $3 each and there were some Sardinas available in the San Jose area at the normal $25 per scoop. There were few if any Mackerel to be found this week.

FISHING

Billfish
For most of the week the Marlin and Sailfish would not bite, you could find them but they were not hungry. Finaly at the end of the week the bite picked up a little and boats began to get them to bite on both bait and lures. Most of the fish I heard caught were found on the Cortez side of the Cape and the majority of them were Striped Marlin. There were some Sailfish caught as well, a real suprise considering the water temperature. The area outside of the 95 spot to the 1150 produced fish for a number of boats and a few were able to release as many as three marlin per trip, not the numbers we have been expecting considering the last several years production, but not bad.
Yellowfin Tuna
The catch on Tuna is still spotty, a few fish found here and a few found there, mostly it seems to be a matter of luck by boats that are actually in the historicaly producing areas such as west of the San Jaime, due south 40 miles and outside the 1,000 fathom line anwhere on the Cortez side. The fish that were found were smaller school fish to 35 pounds, but most of them were footballs at 5-15 pounds. All the fish found were associated with porpoise.
Dorado
We had almost no Dorado in the area at the beginning of the week, but just after the first heavy winds came throught there was a big school of small fish (and some of them were really small, smaller than Sierra) just off of the beach between Gray Rock and the Westin on the Cortez side. These fish were within a mile of the beach and unfortunately they were hammered hard by the fleet, many of the boats were keeping fish that only weighed four or five pounds. The school was blasted quickly and by the end of the week the fish were almost gone. There were a few larger fish found offshore on the Cortez side with some of the fish going as large as 35 pounds, and most of these were caught on lures by boats looking for Marlin.
Wahoo
I did hear of a few Wahoo being caught this week, and they were found close to the beach by boats working for the Dorado in the area. None of the fish were large, averaging just 15 pounds, and a few more were lost due to monofiliment leader, but it was still nice to see a few around.
Inshore
Once again the inshore fishery was the way to go if you wanted action. While the action offshore was slow, there were plenty of Sierra on both sides of the Cape to keep rods bent and fishermen happy. Along with the Sierra were the occasional showing of Yellowtail, Snapper and Grouper. Combine these traditional inshore species with the Dorado action and everyone had some luck this week.
Notes:
Whale watchers were excited this week as there seemed to be action wherever you looked, breaching whales, blowing whales, singles and small pods. Inshore was where the fishing action was this week, but we hope the Marlin start to show up on the Pacific side soon! This weeks report was written to the music of "Yes" on their 1999 Beyond Music release "The Ladder".

Until next week, tight lines!