WEATHER:?? I just got back from a trip to southern Orange County, California on the 17th as was gone for a week so bear in mind that I missed most of the daily information usually contained in my report.?? Almost everything in this weeks report is relayed second hand.?? While I was gone it appears I missed the summertime weather we normally get this time of year.?? It was reported to me that the temperatures actually got above 100 degrees with 80% humidity for three days.?? The day I returned (the 17th), things cooled off with breezes from the northwest returning and dropping the daytime temperatures back into the mid 80's.?? There was no rain while I was gone and of course there were only a couple of partly cloudy days.?? Since I have been back we have not had to use the air-conditioner in the evenings in order to sleep, our nights have been in the mid 70's, very comfortable!

WATER:???? Surface conditions were reported as being very good all week long with the only problem being some fairly large swells coming from the southwest due to storms in that direction.?? With winds locally mostly light and variable, there was no chop on the water on either side of the Cape.?? The water temperatures have changed almost daily however as the California current continues to have a great effect on the water temperatures.?? At the beginning of the week the Pacific side was very cool and the Cortez side of the Cape had water in the high 70's and occasionally into the low 80's all the way to the beach.?? The California current brought cool water close to shore and it wrapped around the Cape so that water within 20 miles of the coast line on the Pacific side and as far up the Sea of Cortez as Punta Gorda was in the low 70's and slightly off color.?? At the end of the week we had an intrusion of warm water from the south and the southeast, water on Saturday at the Cabrillo Seamount was 85 degrees!?? Basically anything outside the 1,000-fathom curve on the Cortez side and immediately south was warm, everything else was cool.

BAIT:?? ??Caballito with some Mullet in the mix were the larger baits available this week, a few boats were able to score on Mackerel but they were not available in large numbers.?? The normal $2 per bait prevailed.?? I don't know if there were any Sardinas available or not.

FISHING:??

BILLFISH:???? At the end of the week there were Striped Marlin to be found in the cool green water close to the beach on the Sea of Cortez side between the Chileno beach area and the Palmilla area.?? Most of these fish were between 4 and 6 miles of the beach.?? A few boats did well with release counts of up to five fish per boat, most boats were happy to get one or two hook-ups per trip.?? The water was still too cool for there to be many Blue Marlin, but on Thursday there was one of #350 caught at the Cabrilla Seamount in the warmer water.

YELLOWFIN TUNA:???? Once again there were scattered schools of football fish to 15 pounds found in with the white-bellied dolphin on the Cortez side of the Cape.?? I heard word of better quality fish being found 15 miles off the coast up at the East Cape and hopefully these fish will make their way down to us soon.?? The negative on this is that I have also seen a lot of purse Seiners, including several super-Seiners (with helicopters on the deck) crossing the Cape heading up in that direction.

DORADO:???? As the water warms up the Dorado catch continues to improve.?? This is one of the basics we can count on in sport fishing, warm water equals Dorado.?? I was out on Thursday and while fishing the Seamount we caught on bull that weighed between 50 and 60 pounds and also a cow that was about 25 pounds.?? It seemed that that was about par for most boats that were able to get into the Dorado, two or three fish per boat.?? There were also fish found in the cooler water closer to shore, but they were smaller on average, with fish in the 12-pound class being the norm.???? Best baits for these fish were feathers in bright colors; the larger fish fell for live bait.

WAHOO:???? I did hear of a few decent Wahoo being caught while I was gone but other than that I have absolutely no information.

INSHORE:???? The cool water inshore continues to produce a few Sierra, but not in any great numbers.?? The talk of the week was nice sized Roosterfish to 50 pounds being found in fair numbers up in the San Jose-Punta Gorda area.?? The best bait there was slow trolled live mullet with most of the action coming in less than 25 feet of water.

NOTES:???? It's nice to be back home, and also nice to know that my timing was right to miss the three hot days.?? It appears that our water is late in warming up this year and that has its positive side as well as the negative.?? On the minus side, everything we expect to appear this time of year is late; the water is not warm enough for the Blues and Blacks to appear in any numbers.?? On the positive side, the cooler water keeps any storms from coming out way!?? Speaking of witch, there is one developing well to the southeast of us but it is projected to pass well to the southwest so the only effects we might receive would be a slight chance of feeder band cloud cover and some larger swells.?? I have my Jeep here finally and if you are interested I will post a picture of it next week, or maybe not, we'll see.?? Until then, tight lines!