WEATHER:
Sure am glad I am here and not there! With nighttime lows in the low 70's and daytime highs in the mid 90's, humidity most day around 35% it just doesn't get much better than this. We had sunny skies all week long and at the start of the week we had a steady, but not too strong wind from the northwest. Today is going to be the hottest of the week though, as it is 77 degrees and not even 7 am yet!

WATER:
On the Cortez side of the Cape, almost in a line running due east of us, the water to the north was 80 degrees until you got off of the Los Frailles area offshore. There it warmed to 84 degrees at the end of the week. South of that line it dropped to 74 degrees except for an intrusion from the Pacific side that ran right along the 1,000 fathom line where it dropped to 70 degrees. On the Pacific side of the Cape it was 66-70 degrees everywhere. Early in the week the Pacific side was a bit rough with large swells and some steady wind, but the swells died down late in the week as did the wind. On the Cortez side of the Cape the wind had little effect later in the week but at the beginning it made for a few days of rough riding back to Cabo if you went east to fish.

BAIT:
There was a decent availability on Caballito this week at the normal $3 per bait, some Sardinas were found in the Palmilla area at $25 a scoop and of course you could get frozen ballyhoo at $3 each.

FISHING:

BILLFISH:
I did not hear of any Swordfish being caught this week but there may have been a few. Most of the boats were concentrating on the Striped marlin that were being found up to the east in the Destillidera area. The best catches were in double digits but most boats were getting between 3 and 5 releases per day, with a lot of fish just giving quick strikes and not hooking up.

Most of the action for the fleet boats was on lures and the fish were averaging a little bit larger at 130 pounds instead of the normal 110 pounds. The action fluctuated a bit day to day and the fish moved around a bit as well. While the concentrations were in the Destillidera area, there were fish found closer to home also. Scattered Striped marlin were found all over the place and it seemed that most of them were willing to hit a lure or bait, but the concentrations were not there for large numbers to be caught. For the boats not making the long trek to the concentrations, a release average of 1 per boat was the norm.

There were still Sailfish being caught in the San Jose area as well, mainly closer to the beach and the structure with small pods of three or four fish coming in to attack lures. Not a lot of them but enough that any trip had the chance of catching one.

YELLOWFIN TUNA:
We finally had some decent numbers of Yellowfin show up. To the east of us there have been occasional breezers, schools of fish that are traveling just under the surface, pushing the water so that it looks like a gust of wind is traveling through. If you see one of them, the chances of hooking up fish are good, just throw a live bait in the water in front of the school. Boats that were finding them and doing that were getting fish averaging 45 pounds with an occasional jumbo over 100 pounds. Most of the boats are catching smaller fish close to home. The area from 2 to 6 miles off the beach between the arch and Chileano Bay produced plenty of blind strikes on fish that averaged 18 pounds, a few smaller than that but nice fish anyway. Almost anything worked, lures big and small, live bait, rigged dead bait, it was just a matter of getting a strike and then working the area. A good catch was a dozen fish, a big catch was limits for everyone.

DORADO:
Every week the numbers increase, and this week the size increased as well. There were quite a few fish in the 40-50 pound class caught, and a lot of fish in the 12-20 pound class. The warm water on the Cortez side of the Cape was producing almost all the fish with the larger ones found offshore and the smaller ones closer to the beach.

WAHOO:
It sounded as if the Wahoo bite was decent this week if you were fishing out at Punta Gorda. Boats that concentrated their effort on the 50 fathom line and worked it hard with swimming plugs and lead head lures were getting between two and five fish per day, most of them in the 30 pound class with an occasional fish to 60 pounds. There were a few others caught offshore but there were no concentrations out there, just incidental catches.

INSHORE:
Roosterfish were the stars of the week for the inshore fishermen as some of the larger fish arrived with the warmer water. In the white water you could see fish to 40 pounds cruising for something to eat and getting a live bait in there usually resulted in a hook-up. Almost all of the sandy beaches were producing the Roosterfish, but the average size was 15 pounds, the larger ones were not as common. There were also some nice snapper caught in the rocks if you were able to get a bait in there, but the large swells early in the week made that a bit difficult. Many of the Pangas were fishing for Yellowfin Tuna since they were so close and biting so well.

NOTES:
Reports on the weather stations say that we might reach 100 degrees today! I think it is time to head to the beach before the sand get too hot to walk on, Tawny does not like that hot sand on her paws! The weather is heating up and so is the fishing, I am planning on a meat trip tomorrow, going out for a half day to get some fresh Tuna. This means that my recipe mid-week will be something to do with Tuna, you betcha! This weeks report was written to the music of Mark Knopfler on my favorite album of his, the soundtrack for "Sailing to Philadelphia".

Until next week, tight lines!