Weather: Once again you could not have asked for more perfect weather as our morning lows were in the low 70's and the daytime highs in the mid to high 80's. The humidity was low, the bugs were almost gone, the sun was shining and the water was warm. It really does not get much better than this.

Water: On the Sea of Cortez we had 83 degree water from the shore out to a distance of about 10 miles then it started to drop to 79 degrees. The surface conditions were great with very small swells and little wind. On the Pacific side the wind was fairly constant from the northwest, but not strong enough to make it impossible to fish, just uncomfortable for a lot of people. The warm water from the Sea of Cortez started to wrap around the Cape and extended itself out to the southern edge of the San Jaime Bank at the end of the week. The near-shore water was a cool 78 degrees while out a distance of 30+ miles it dripped to 75 degrees.

Bait: Caballito were available at $3 each as were mullet. There were small Sardinas as well at around $30 a scoop.

FISHING

Billfish: Marlin remained the talk of the town as the 30th annual Bisbee's Black and Blue tournament too place Wednesday through Friday. There were 8 marlin over 300 pounds brought to the weigh scale on the first day of the tournament with the largest being 599 pounds. Actually there were 9 fish brought in, but the largest one, a 800 pound Blue Marlin was 10 minutes late and did not qualify. Overall for the 103 boats fishing, there were 74 fish reported caught with 13 Black Marlin, 32 Blue Marlin, 28 Striped Marlin and one Sailfish. This is just for the tournament and does not count fish caught by charter boats not involved. With 0.73 fish per boat it was slow the last two days, but the average size was very good. Most of the fish were caught on the Sea of Cortez side as the conditions for large fish were more favorable there.

Yellowfin Tuna: Seeing the big Yellowfin Tuna blowing up on small bait fish was not an uncommon sight this week and several of the large fish were brought in. The largest I heard of was one that weighed right around 388 pounds, caught by a boat fishing for big Marlin in the tournament. There were quite a few fish in the 30-40 pound class brought to the docks by the charter boats, and most of these were caught due south of the Cape, fairly close to shore.

Dorado: The charter fleets continued to do well on Dorado just to the south and on the Pacific side of the Cape with an average of three fish per boat, and some limiting out with fish that averaged 12 pounds. An occasional fish went to 40 pounds, but not quite as many as there were last week.

Wahoo: I did not hear of as many Wahoo this week, but it may have been because of the number of boats fishing for Marlin. With the full moon though, and the large number of boats working the Gorda Banks and the flats off of Punta Gorda, not having many Wahoo hook-ups was a surprise.

Inshore: For the third week in a row, this week was a repeat of the last week for the inshore fishing. Roosterfish to 40 pounds, some nice sized Sierra and a scattering of Snapper were reported from the Pacific shoreline this week. The Roosterfish were caught on live bait and the schools have been fairly large. The Snapper have been tight into the rocks, but our small swells have made it easier than normal to get in there and toss a live bait. Most of the Pangas have been focusing slightly offshore fishing for the Dorado.

Notes: If you are getting your own fishing licenses, you must have pesos. The people that sell the licenses around the marina can no longer take dollars from anyone.

This week I decided to go western as a friend brought me some down home Texas music. One of my favorites was Hayes Carll on his CD "Little Rock" Until next week, tight lines. http://captgeo.wordpress.com