Weather: With our morning low this week at 68 degrees and our daytime highs in the low 90's it could only be better if we had a little bit of rain every other day. Anyway, it's been great! We only had a little bit of wind the other evening that did not last long and mostly sunny skies every day.

Water: The interesting thing on the water this week was the way the currents affected the distribution on the Pacific side. First, on the Cortez side of the Cape the water was almost a uniform 80 degrees on the surface with small seas and only afternoon chop when the wind blew hard enough. On the Pacific side the currents have really moved things around. In the middle of the week we had two troughs of cold water running north-south, the first one inside the San Jaime and off of the beach where the water dropped to 73 degrees, with 75-76 degree water on either side. The second was just to the west where there was a two degree difference with a three mile wide band of 73 degree water was pinned between 78 degree water, about 8 miles to the west of the Jaime Banks. By the end of the week everything had warmed up a couple of degrees and tightened up, mocing a bit closer to shore.

Bait: Caballito were available at $3 each as were mullet. There were small Sardinas as well at around $30 a scoop. Still no Mackerel available from the bait boats, but a couple of the larger boats have brought a few down from Mag Bay, so perhaps they are on their way in our direction.

FISHING
Billfish: With tournament time over for the year, as far as the big fish are concerned, there has been little direct pressure on the Blue and Black Marlin, therefor the ones that have been caught have been incidental catches. There are still a few Black Marlin out there, mostly up in the San Jose and Punta Gorda flats. A scattering of reported hook-up on Blue Marlin have been made as well with a few brought to the docks, but the largest I heard of was about #300. The big event of the week has been the re-appearence of the Striped Marlin on the Pacific side. While there has been no big balls of bait piled up, there have been small spots of bait on the Golden Gate Bank and along the self off of the Los Arcos area and the lighthouse. Some boats have been doing well, with up to four Striped Marlin a day by finding these bait balls on the depth sounder and dropping live bait on them. It would probbaly be a better catch rate if we could match the bait, but not yet. Also, in the afternoons the Marlin have been chasing the remainder of the bait to the surface and the diving birds have been resulting in clouds of smoke as captains gun the boats to the action, hoping to get a bait in there before the fish dissapear again. While frustrating at times, some boats have been getting four to 6 Striped Marlin a day this way.

Yellowfin Tuna: There were still some nice Tuna caught this week but I did not see anything over 180 pounds hit the dock in the afternoons. Most of the fish were slightly larger than footballs at 25-30 pounds, with a few larger to 80 pounds, but at the end of the week I also saw some that were more the size of footballs and less, down to three or four pounds. All these fish have been scattered in the open ocean with some concentrated just to the west of the San Jaime and more concentrated in the Inman and Gorda Banks areas, but the larger fish I have seen were all from porpoise, and quite a ways offshore. Boats fishing the areas to the north up in the San Jose area have been doing all right using live Sardinas as chum then fly-lining a hooked bait, this has been the favored method for the fish to 30 pounds.

Dorado: These were still a dissapointment as we saw no really large fish hit the dock. I heard of one nice one that weighed 50+ pounds, but for the most part the fish have been less than 10 pounds, and most of them have been caught near-shore on the Pacific side.

Wahoo: The Wahoo bite took off this week with some boats bringing in six per trip. The best time was at gray light in the morning, and using dark colored lures and swimming plugs worked for artificial lures. Some boats were rigging ballyhoo inside a hollow head lure and pulling them in the spread and were doing well with them, but the best catch came from boats using live bait. The bait was Mackerel Scad, and you had to be out at first light to get them, and you had to catch your own, they are not available from the bait boats. Slow trolling these treats resulted in giant blow-ups as the Wahoo tried to eat them, and the occasional surprise Yellowfin Tuna as well. On the Cortes side, between Gray Rock and the Inman Bank, all in the shallow, 300 foot or less water was the best place to be for these speedsters.

Inshore: Roosterfish in the petite size with an occasional fish to 35 pounds, Lady fish, decent sized Sierra, small Yellowfin, Bonito, Skip jack, occasional Snapper and Grouper along with a patchwork of Dorado and Striped Marlin made up most of the inshore catch this week. Boats that had Sardinas also did great playing with needle fish to 4 feet, something kids really like to do and they are great fun on ultra-light gear. Most of the effort took place on the Pacific side of the Cape and for shear numbers, Sierra were the fish of the week inshore.

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. Get pesos the day before. No one has change for your US $100 at 6AM.