WEATHER:
Wow, it just keeps getting better every day! Daytime highs in the low 90's and nighttime lows in the low 70's, does it really get any better than this? We had partly cloudy skies for most of the week and toward the end of the week we had some really blustery days, Saturday was a bit windy in the afternoon. No rain here in town but it looked as if there might have been some in the mountains.

WATER:
Surface temperatures were 84 degrees close to Cabo from the shore to about 5-8 miles out, then they dropped to 81-82 degrees. The water stayed at 84 degrees up toward San Jose. On the Pacific side it was in the cooler side with most of the water 81 to 82 degrees. There was a plume of warm 84 degree water that ran from the tip of the Cape toward the west and across the southern end of the San Jaime Bank for several days. Mid week the water on the Pacific side was a bit on the rough side due to the winds, but it calmed down at the end of the week. Swells on the Pacific side were in the 4-6 foot range and in the 2-3 foot range on the Sea of Cortez.

BAIT:
It was still tough to get good bait this week, some of the bait guys were bringing it down from San Jose but by the time it got here after an hour of running full bore and pounding and slapping on the way it was a bit beat up and did not last long in the bait tanks. It's hard to justify spending $30 on live bait just to have it die within 4 hours so a lot of anglers were opting to just buy a few and see if they would be able to catch something else to use later on. Caballito and Mullet were $3 each, or sometimes $4 each depending on the supplier. There were some sardinas, but not many and they were pricy at around $35 a scoop.

FISHING:

BILLFISH:
Small Blue and Black Marlin as well as a decent showing of Sailfish combined with an increasing number of Striped Marlin kept anglers excited this week. The big news was the increase in the number of Striped Marlin being caught. For the boats that were able to get farther up the coast toward the north side of the Golden Gate Bank there were plenty of Striped Marlin to see, and many of them were hungry. A good day was three releases, a great day was 5 releases but the average was one or two per day. Mackerel are beginning to show up and the water is cooling down so perhaps we are going to have a good season on these billfish. Some of the private boats that have been fishing in the Mag Bay area have reported that the Striped Marlin bite is almost wide open so if the fish continue to move in our direction....well, remember 4 years ago? Look out buddy, better put new line on them reels!!

YELLOWFIN TUNA:
What a change! One week the Tuna fishing was world class and then it tanked for five or six days. I don't know the reason but the fleet was getting skunked just three days after one of the best Tuna Tournaments we have had in a long time. At least by the end of the week the fish had started to show up again. This is not to say that there were no Tuna being caught because there were, and they were nice ones, it's just that the school fish we had been seeing in the 25-40 pound class seemed to have disappeared. Boats were still getting some of the larger fish in the 100-200+ class. We had one party that caught a 65 and 45 pound tuna and that made everyone happy because it had been slow.

DORADO:
The Dorado continue to bite and have become the bread and butter of the charter fleet for the past few weeks. Most of the fish have come on live bait slow trolled in areas where the fish have been found after getting strike on a lure. Averaging 12 pounds, they have not been large but there have been enough of them for most anglers to limit out if they want to. A few larger fish have been caught but anything over 30 pounds has been rare. Almost all the action has been on the Pacific side of the Cape between the lighthouse and the inside of the Golden Gate Bank.

WAHOO:
Never a very common fish, the approach and arrival of the full moon helped in the catching of Wahoo this week. My guess is that about 50% of the boats fishing close to shore for Dorado had at least on bite from a Wahoo. The problem of course is the razor sharp teeth these fish have. Slow trolling a live bait on 80 pound monofiliment line is not the ideal way to keep one hooked up! If you use a wire leader you won't catch very many Dorado, so there were quite a few bite offs from Wahoo. Nothing is quite as frustrating as seeing a splash behind your bait and pulling it in just to find that the back half has been surgically removed.

INSHORE:
Still no reports of Sierra that I have heard of, but we did have a client that managed to get a 20 pound Yellowtail this week by jigging close to the bottom in 200 feet of water. Most of the Pangas were focused on the Dorado and Marlin because they were close to shore and not far from home.

NOTES:
Let's see. Perfect weather, great fishing, sunshine, the whales are beginning to show up, guess it's time to make travel plans! We hope you manage to take advantage of our present conditions and visit Cabo soon. This weeks report was written to the music of Cory Morrow on his 2010 release "Brand New Me". You really need to check him out, my heartfelt thanks to Mark Bailey (once again) for introducing me to this album!

Until next week, tight lines!