The summer heat and humidity has definitely now arrived and??was relentless this past??week. Very tropical weather, though at this time there were no new storms developing, with ocean water temperatures now averaging close to 85 degrees it is hard to predict what the weather will do more than??a couple of days ahead of time. Swells were minimal and wind was light, sportfishing fleets were concentrating mainly from Chileno north to the Gordo Banks and San Luis, with most of the action being found anywhere from one to eight miles from shore.??

Catches were dominated by dorado, yellowfin tuna, billfish and a mix of bottom species. Dorado were found throughout the area, striking on bait and lures,??average sizes ranged from 10 to 30 pound, with a few exceptional sized bulls also mixed in. The Inner Gordo Bank produced some quality sized dorado for anglers trolling with bolito and sardinas, bolito could be caught by trolling small hoochies early in the morning, after that they were hard to come by. It appears that the Banks are really started to come alive, mass quantities of baifish, bolito, white and black skipjack. One monster 200 pound striped marlin was landed on Friday by panguero Chame Pino and another panguero lost??a hook up with a black marlin after it broke the heavy 300 pound leader. Schools of dorado were also present on the banks, including at least a couple of fifty pound fish that were accounted for.

Yellowfin tuna continued to be found off of the Palmilla and Red Hill area, from two to four miles offshore, trolling with rapalas, hoochies and small feathers all worked, though the fish were a bit line shy and anglers had the best success when using light line and leaders. Most of these tuna were in the ten to fifteen pound range, with some specimens reaching twenty pounds. Not much surface activity could be seen, fish were found by trolling in the general area and taking blind strikes, with the best action being earlier in the day.

There was a powerful current prevalent and this made bottomfishing that much more difficult, though closer to shore anglers did have fair catches of yellow snapper and off of San Luis Bank there were a handful of 6 to 12 pound huachinango (red snapper).

The combined panga fleets??launching from La??Playita sent out approximately 47 charters for??the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of:

14 striped marlin, 132 dorado, 214 yellowfin tuna, 4 hammerhead sharks, 65 mixed species of pargo, 8 cabrilla and 4 amberjack.??