WEATHER:
Well, it looks as if I brought some weather back with me on my return from San Diego. While I was gone we had warm mornings where it was 77 degrees at 6am and the days warmed to the high 90's. Now, at the end of the week our morning high was 61 degrees and the daytime highs look to be in the high 70's. Not only that, but it has been cloudy for most of the week and this weekend the wind really started to blow with heavy gusts on Saturday afternoon, strong winds Sunday morning with the wind laying down a bit by noon.

WATER:
With the cloud cover we had no decent sea surface temperature readings from the satellites, any readings we had were made from being on the water. From what we were able to ascertain, the surface temperatures on the Pacific side were in the mid to high 60's, depending on where you were with the cooler water occurring closer to the beach, and the surface conditions while great early in the week, became almost un-fishable by the weekend due to the winds. On the Cortez side things were quite a bit better with the water between 72 and 75 degrees early in the week and dropping an average of one degree for the weekend. Surface conditions were much better than on the Pacific, the winds did not generate a large swell on the Cortez side, just some choppy conditions around the 95 spot and a general choppy aspect in the afternoons.

BAIT:
Caballito and Mackerel as well as a few Mullet could be had for $3 per bait. A few of the bait boats had "frozen" ballyhoo for between $3-4, each, but you never know how many times they had been "frozen".

FISHING:

BILLFISH:
Still just "OK", not wide open by any means, and the fish are still showing well from the 95 spot on up the coast on the Cortez side, across the 1150 and the San Jose Canyon. This warmer, very blue water has been showing us a lot of fish, but they have not been very hungry. A decent trip results in a release, a good trip in two releases and one of the best trips I heard of had 4 releases out of 12 bites. The fish have been there in good numbers but have been stuffed on all the squid that is out there. One of the secrets (but not any more!) has to been taking a 13 inch hollow plastic squid shell and stuffing it with some squid from the market, then slow trolling four or five of these so that they just slide on the surface. Match the hatch, right size and right taste, they are used to eating them and they are easier to catch than live Mackerel or Caballito. You just have to let the Marlin chew a bit longer, give them three or four more seconds before letting the line come tight so the circle hook sets in the jaw.

YELLOWFIN TUNA:
We are still waiting for a decent showing on Yellowfin, and I hope that it happens soon. There were a few footballs caught this week by boats fishing approximately 25 miles to the south, but these were blind strikes with no signs of the fish being there other than a reel suddenly singing out. No porpoise, no birds, and the fish appeared to be moving fairly fast as a quick pass back over the same area seldom produce repeat hook-ups.

DORADO: There were some decent numbers of small fish caught this week, all on the Cortez side of the Cape in the warmer waters. Most of the fish were caught fairly close to the beach, but these were also the smaller fish. Once again the larger fish, though few in number, were caught offshore by boats fishing for Marlin. Everything likes to eat Squid!

WAHOO:
Once again there were a few Wahoo caught, and they were found in the warm water around the 1150 area. While not large they were decent size, between 20 and 30 pounds. Farther up the coast on the Pacific side there were small Wahoo caught, small as in Min-hoo, with a large fish going 7 pounds. Wow, almost like a larger Sierra! The East Cape was seeing a few of these little guys.

INSHORE:
Still fish of the week, Yellowtail have been the meat and potatoes for the fleet once again. While a few of the Captains are saying the Yellowtail are not biting, everyone we have had out has managed to catch at least three of four of them, and some of them have been as large as 40 pounds! Live bait fished just off the bottom was the key for success, yo-yo'ing iron was not as productive, and slow trolling large lipped, deep diving artificials did not do very well at all. The Sierra bite was on as well with decent numbers of fish being caught, and some of them were very nice sized for the species, coming in at 7-9 pounds, but of course the average was 5-6 pounds. Add in a scattering of Jacks and Grouper and the inshore action was pretty good this week!

NOTES:
I am back after a pretty uneventful delivery to San Diego. 9 days, traveling during the day with wonderful weather and only minor problems along the way. Sure is good to be back! This weeks report was written to the music of Adele, a decent mix from the albums 19 and 21. Friday night we had a chance to listen to the Brian Flynn band at the Cabo Lounge and our friend Daniel Touchman stopped by and played a few songs on Brian's guitar. His girlfriend (and my old editor from "Discover" magazine) stepped up to the microphone and wowed us with a fantastic cover of "Me and Bobby McGee". What a great evening we had. Friends stopped at Zippers in San Jose on the way to the airport yesterday to drop off the kids and grandchild and watched at least three whales playing just off the beach. Nice to know that these are still around.

Until next week, Tight Lines!