Weather: Summertime is still here, but with the wind we had this week it was more like Chicago! You could look out and see the wind line to the southeast and it was blowing hard almost all day, every day right at the Cape. At least the wind was coming from the normal northwest direction most of the time, occasionally in the late afternoon it would shift a little and come from the west, making it a long bumpy ride home for the boats. Our nighttime lows were in the high 60's while the daytime highs were in the low 80's. We had mostly cloudy days at the end of the week and the wind died down as well.

Water: June 30 say the largest change in water temperature as there was 65 degree water at the San Jaime Bank and 85 degree water at the Gorda Bank! Of course there were very few, if any, boats fishing the San Jaime due to the strong wind. The water closer to shore on the Pacific was a bit warmer at 68 degrees, but the good water was on the Cortez side of the Cape, with an average of 78 degrees over the week. Mid-week hit the warmest waters with most of the area being in the 82 degree range. Caballito and Mullet were available at $3 per bait.

FISHING

Billfish: It was a decent preview of summer fishing with Striped Marlin being a bit more active than last week, Blue Marlin showing up and a few Swordfish showing as well. The Striped Marlin were found pretty close, as was everything else, mainly due to the fact that the farther out you went the rougher the water became! Striped Marlin were seen tailing on the surface but for the most part were ignoring the normal Caballito and Mackerel live baits. The boats that did the best on the Striped Marlin were hooking small Bonito close to shore then slow trolling them. There were a few fish found that would eat the other baits, so it was not a waste of time or money to buy them, but the bonito seemed to work better. There was a nice Blue Marlin of 600-700 pounds caught and released (I saw the video) two miles off of Gray Rock. The fight lasted 98 minutes and the fish ate a lure. There was also a Swordfish of #150 caught around the 95 spot on Wednesday.

Yellowfin Tuna: Yellowfin were being caught every day and there were a few large fish found up in the Punta Gorda area.. Not as many of the larger fish as there were last week, but if you were one of the lucky boats, the fish were going up to 100 pounds. Nearer to home there were scattered football fish to 25 pounds.

Dorado: There were a few small Dorado caught this week, a few more than were showing up last week, and there were a couple of larger fish reported as well. Most of them were in the 8-10 pound class but the larger fish were around 20-25 pounds this week. Found on the Cortez side of the Cape in the warmer water, small bright colored lures worked best, with live bait dropped back after the first hook-up resulting in an occasional double header.

Wahoo: Once again I did not hear of any Wahoo being caught. That does not mean there were none, just that I did not hear of any.

Inshore: Inshore fishing was mostly conducted on the Cortez side of the Cape due to the wind. Pangas were doing all right, but not great, on Snapper and small Grouper. A few nice Amberjack to 60 pounds were caught as well. Small Bonito and football Yellowfin Tuna as well as a few Striped Marlin were found very close to the beach and got the Panga fishermen excited. The wind and swells made the water a bit off colored very close to the beach.