WEATHER:
What great weather we had for Easter week! Our daytime highs managed to reach just over the mid 90's for a few days and the evening lows managed to touch the mid 60's, really nice stuff! There was almost no cloud cover so it was nice and sunny all week.

WATER:
Good news! We are seeing a warming trend and that means that the fishing is getting better. As the reports below show, warmer water most of the time means better fishing, until it gets too warm, of course. As of the end of the week the water on the Pacific side had warmed from the 62 degrees we had last week to 64-67 degrees. The only issue we had this week was surface conditions, as for part of the week evening winds made it a little rough to go offshore in the mornings. Inshore it was quite a bit better with just swells and not so much chop. On the Cortez side the warm water that had eased in up off of Vinorama continued it move in our direction, During the middle of the day we were getting water temperatures in the high 70's, dropping to the low 70's at night. This warm water moved south to the Gorda Banks and just a bit south of there, winding it's way to the 1150. Surface conditions were great as well with only small swells and a bit of wind chop later in the day.

BAIT:
It was still difficult to get any good supply of decent large baits here, most of the stuff the bait boats had were look-downs and grunts, there were only a few Mackerel and Caballito to be found. Of course it was the usual $3 per bait, even for the poor baits. Sardinas were available here, but they were more expensive than getting them to the north. Most of the boats that wanted Sardinas were traveling to Palmilla to get them. There were large ones and small ones, and whichever you wanted were $25 to $30 a scoop.

FISHING:

BILLFISH:
We finally have some good news to report about the billfish! There were Striped Marlin found at the tail end of the week before last, but the bite was still an on-off situation, and I did not want to really say much since only a few boats were doing well. So.....this week it finally went off, great Striped Marlin fishing was to be had on the Gorda Banks to the 1150 and all the way down to the 95 spot. There were jumpers, tailers and feeders all through the area and they were finally hungry. While before a good catch for the better boats was three or four fish, this week the better results were in double digits! Plenty of fish were found to throw baits at, if you had the baits. Many of the boats were pulling rigged ballyhoo or tuna belly strips and getting bit. These fish were also going after lures. A few guys were saying things were wide open, but that is just in comparison to what we have experienced for the past three months. Average boats were releasing a couple of fish a day, whereas in a wide open bite everyone is in double digits! Anyway, another bright spot on the billfish front is the appearance of Swordfish. Most of them have been found up off of Vinorama and Punta Gorda on the surface. There have been several caught every day and more lost. One boat caught three over two days, all on the surface. I have no idea how long this is going to last but last week it was good!

YELLOWFIN TUNA:
Another bright spot for the week was the showing of some Yellowfin, finally. The 95 spot to the 1150 had scattered schools of footballs with some larger fish to 40 pounds in the mix. Of course the first boats to the schools did the best, but the bite did not totally shut down and most anglers were able to get one or two into the fish box. Farther up the coast off of the Gorda Banks there were scattered schools as well, and some of them held fish to 100 pounds. A slightly different method was needed on the larger fish, just trolling lures or chumming with Sardinas did not work. Setting out a kite or using a helium balloon to get the bait well away from the boat brought some bites from these larger fish. Boats that were willing to brave the choppy water on the Pacific side of the Cape got into some larger footballs, to 25 pounds, just to the south of the San Jaime Bank, but the choppy water made it difficult to follow the pods of Porpoise used to find the action.

DORADO:
We finally saw a few Dorado hit the docks this past week. The warm water that moved in brought everything with it and Dorado were not an exception. While not there in great numbers as the water is still a bit cool, there were fish caught that weighed up to 20 pounds. Most of them were in the 10-12 pound class however, and were mixed in with both the Yellowfin and the Marlin. If the warm water remains, or gets even warmer, there is a chance the bite on Dorado will get better. I am not going to say that for sure though, because if there is one thing I have learned in over 35 years fishing offshore is to never predict! I just say what happened, I can't see into the future, if I could I'd be rich!

WAHOO:
I saw more orange flags flying this week than last week, but I did not see any Wahoo hit the docks. That does not mean there were not any caught, after all with that warmer water and our just coming off of the full moon there should be Wahoo out there. I just did not see any of them, and none of my good friends told me of catching any. So, probably most of the orange flags I saw were for Sierra, but there is a good chance some of them were for Wahoo.

INSHORE:
It was nice to have a good variety of inshore fishing to choose from. If you decided to go up the Pacific coastline you had a good chance to get into decent Yellowtail. Up off of the rocky points working iron in water to 200 feet resulted in some really steady action on fish to 25 pounds. One of my buddies said he did well with 10 fish between 20-28 pounds in two hours, with most of them coming right off the bottom, and lost a few more that rocked him. (good going Cubby!) If you decided to go after Sierra instead of Yellowtail all you had to do was go up the Cortez coastline a little way. Sardinas for chum brought the fish around, but the best bites were had by using dead ones, drifted back on a bit of wire leader. Mono leader got bit more often but also resulted in a lot few sharp-toothed fish in the boat. A few grouper were found by the Pangas as well as a few snapper.

FISH RECIPE:
Simple is better, and much faster in food preparation. One of the simplest recipes I have for fish involves the use of just oil, salt and pepper. We had Sierra fillets Saturday night courtesy of one of our clients and as it was late when we got home I wanted something quick and simple, but with a twist. Sierra have no scales so I left the skin on but trimmed out the bloodline and ribs. Any fish with scales, get rid of them first. I then brushed the fish with avocado oil, then a light touch of sesame oil. Dust on the salt and pepper, oil the grill and away we go! Combined with some french fries and a small salad of tomato wedges, romaine, black olives and crumbled blue cheese and we had a meal fit for a king!

NOTES:
What a great week! Wonderful weather, the fishing really picking up on all fronts and lots of people in for the Easter week. It has been quite a while since we have seen the fishing this good and it has everyone excited. If you want to go offshore for billfish, they are there. If you want Tuna there is a very good chance at them, and the possibility of a big one. Yellowtail and Sierra continue to bite for those that want some meat on the table or just don't feel like spending a full day fishing. It really does not get much better than this! If you were hesitating about coming down to fish, go ahead and do it. Of course there is no guarantee that the fishing will continue to be this good when you get here, but then again there never is a guarantee about fishing! This weeks report was written to some sounds I haven't heard in a while, but one of my wife's favorites. The CD is a 1986 Chrysalis Records release of Billy Idol titled "Whiplash Smile". Good sounds!

Until next week, tight lines!