WEATHER:
Warm, humid and at least for the first part of the week, very sunny! In the middle of the week we started to get some cloud cover and a bit of localized wind, and at the end of the week we had pretty solid cloud cover on Saturday and some gusty winds. Hurricane Fabio is passing 600 miles to the southwest so I don't think any of this if from that far away. Our lows in the mornings have been in the low to mid 80's and the highs for the days right around 100 degrees.

WATER:
Still nice and warm out there, it's nice to see! I think the summer water is here to stay! In front of Cabo it is 83 degrees and fairly clean, up toward the east cape area it warms to 87 degrees in some places. If you travel 35 miles to the west you can find water that is as cool as 80 degrees. The water on the Pacific side is not quite as clean as that on the Cortez side, but it will clean up eventually. The only concern I have for the end of the week and the start of next week is the storm swells we have started to get. The shoreline is covered by wrack (foam) due to the swells pounding the beach, some of them at 4-8 feet. The good thing is that they are storm swells and spaced well apart.

BAIT:
Caballito and Mullet were available at the normal $3 per bait and there were plenty of green Jacks if you wanted them. The swells kept the bait guys from getting sardines at the end of the week.

FISHING:

BILLFISH:
Striped Marlin, Blue Marlin and Sailfish were the billfish caught this week. I did not hear of any Black Marlin, but it is possible that there were a few. Most of the fish have been found offshore 8 to 20 miles. The 1150 and 95 spot have been the best for the Striped Marlin while off of the Cabrillo Seamount and the Gorda Banks some Blue Marlin have been hooked up. The Sailfish have been pretty much everywhere in small pods, anglers are reporting gangs of three to four fish appearing in the spreads set for Blue Marlin. Since it is hard to hook them on the big lures, and difficult to get a decent fight from them on the heavy gear, almost all the boats are carrying smaller gear to pitch live baits with.

YELLOWFIN TUNA:
We finally had some decent fish to 50 pounds show up close to home this week, not in any big numbers though. Between 8 and 20 miles offshore they have been showing up in pods of Dolphin, and while most of the fish are smaller ones in the 10-20 pound range, double hook-ups on the larger fish are always possible. The better sized fish seem to be eating well away from the boat, so trolling a lure or bait a half-spool back, or off a kite, has worked well. Dropping back a live bait as soon as a fish is hooked up has also produced some larger tuna.

DORADO: I hope that they are here to stay because the Dorado have arrived. Still no guarantee of a limit of two for everyone on the boat, but pretty close if you are targeting them. And, there have been some very nice sized fish, to 45-50 pounds! Yum! Oh, and they fight pretty darn well too! Look for anything floating on the water, including turtles, they sometimes have Dorado under them, just don't pull your lures so close that you hook the turtle. Finding diving, swooping frigate birds is also an excellent way to put some of these great eating fish in the cooler. Leaving the first fish you hook up in the water for a few minutes often results in other Dorado coming in to follow it, giving you a chance at multiple fish.

WAHOO:
I did not hear of any Wahoo this week.

INSHORE:
Sierra action this week was decent inshore, but not great, and there was good action on a mix of bottom fish from snapper to grouper to trigger-fish. A few Yellowtail on the Pacific side, but no large ones that I heard of, some decent Amberjack action and good numbers or Roosterfish all along the shoreline on the Cortez side.

NOTES:
Led Zeppelin and Brian Flynn, my music choices for the week. I listened to both last night as Brian played a bit of Zeppelin at Beso's, a great show! I thought our pup, Tawny was watching Brian play, but it turned out she had her eye on his leftover burger sitting next to him! We are not expecting any weather from the passing storms, but we will be getting swells. With the water warming up like this we will be keeping our eye out for any further development to the south. Until next week, enjoy your summer and get some fishing in!

Tight lines!