WEATHER: We sure had a changeable week on the weather front. One day the morning high was 76 degrees and the next it was 64 degrees, one day sunny, the next cloudy with fog. One day it was peaceful with little wind, the next morning it was howling. The beginning of the week was a nice recovery from the wind of last week, but it returned on Friday, and it blew hard. As I sit here on Sunday morning I can hear the wind whistle through the palms and bougainvillaea outside, not quite as strong as yesterday, so hopefully it will die off soon. Typically this time of year we have several windy days followed by several calm days.

WATER: We were looking at a beautiful band of warm water along the Cortez side of the Cape this week. It extended from the East Cape all the way to Cabo and curled around the Cape just a little, extending up into the Pacific a short way. A great 78 to 80 degree band of water, it extended from the shoreline to approximately 8 miles out. While not a perfectly clean blue color, it was fairly clean on the outer edge. Once you went past the edge the water quickly dropped to 66-68 degrees within several miles. On the Pacific side the warm water only extended a short way to just past the lighthouse, but it went offshore a bit to the west. Unfortunately as the wind began to blow at the end of the week and the currents shifted this warm water was pushed back up the Sea of Cortez so that on Saturday evening we saw the water at just 70 degrees off of Cabo and 74 degrees off of San Jose. Surface conditions were just fair at the start of the week on the Pacific side, but it didn't matter as there were few fish there anyway. Once the wind started to blow it became un-fishable, and the wind wrapped around the Cape so that by noon on Friday and Saturday you were coming home from the San Jose direction directly into the sheep farm, a wet and wooly ride back to the slip.

BAIT: Caballito were the bait most boats were able to get this week, and at the normal $3 each. Some of the bait boats were carrying a few partially frozen Ballyhoo as well, at the same price.

FISHING:

BILLFISH: With the warm water showing up we had a re-appearance of the Striped Marlin. While the bit was not wide open by any means, most boats were able to get hooked up at least once during a trip, and a few boats managed to release as many as four fish on a charter. Most of the boats were happy with one fish released, great results compared to what we had been seeing. There were a few Swordfish caught as well in the waters outside the Gorda Bank where the temperature and color changed. I expected to hear reports of some Blue and Black Marlin but did not, that does not mean there were not any caught, just that I did not hear of them. The water might still be just a little off-color for them to show up.

YELLOWFIN TUNA: I heard there was a great Tuna bite for a few day up on the East Cape but there was little action in our area. As was the case last week, a few boats managed to catch a few football size Yellowfin, most in the blind, not associated with the porpoise.

DORADO: There were some decent Dorado caught this week due to the warm water being here, but there were no large numbers of them. Several boats caught fish to 50 pounds and there were quite a few smaller fish in the 8-10 pound range. It was not a species that many of the boats targeted, instead they were an incidental catch by boats fishing for Marlin.

WAHOO: I did hear of several decent Wahoo being caught this week, once again a result of the warm water moving into the area. Most of the action occurred from Palmilla and eastward toward and past Los Frailes.

INSHORE: Roosterfish, Amberjack, Pargo, Yellowtail and Sierra were the inshore flavors of the week for most of the anglers fishing near shore. We had a decent showing of Roosterfish to 50 pounds with most of them in the 15-25 pound class for the boats fishing off of Cabo Del Sol and there were a few found just around the arch on the Pacific side early in the week. The Sierra bite was good early in the week on larger fish to 9 pounds for boats fishing the Pacific side in 100 feet of water, there were smaller fish close to the beach. Amberjack were found from Gray Rock to Palmilla and the best results were had using live bait dropped down to 10 feet off the bottom in water from 90 to 130 feet deep. The same techniques worked for the Yellowtail, and in the same area. Argo were found closer to shore, and they as well as some grouper could be had by trolling large lipped Rappala type lures in 50 to 60 feet of water.

NOTES: If I could predict how the fishing was going to be I would be rich, instead I am just frustrated. Once the weather and water settles down we will have great fishing as well as great expectations on every trip, but for now it's fishing, not always catching. It has turned into a nice day as the wind has let up, so it's time to hit the beach for our Sunday morning trip with the pup. This weeks report was written to the music of Capt. Sam Crutchfield on a compilation album, good fishing songs!

Until next week, Tight lines!