Much the same story this past week, warm tropical weather, high humidity and through the first part of the week anglers enjoyed very comfortable offshore ocean conditions for the increasing crowds to take advantage of wide open dorado action, as well as a mix of other species. Water temperatures are now averaging close to 84 degrees throughout most of the region and supplies of live sardinas remained abundant off of the Puerto Los Cabos area. Over the weekend there was Tropical Storm Juliette that developed out west of the southern Baja peninsula and it did not seem to pose any problems for land as it is projected stay offshore and weaken as it enters cooler waters. There was some local rain squalls that moved in on Saturday night and into Sunday, this created some rougher seas, but still a handful charters headed out to see what they could find.

Dorado action seemed to be found in all directions, anywhere from one to 12 miles offshore, striking well on a variety of lures and the various available baits. Sizes ranging from 5 to 40 pounds, with many smaller fish being released. Most of the fish being landed were more in the 5 to 20 pound range. One of the more consistent places were the fishing grounds between La Fortuna and Iman Bank. It was common to see charters account for a dozen of more dorado in one outing. Yellowfin tuna action was more hit or miss, most boats averaged just one or two yellowfin?? per trip in the 12 to 15 pound class, but other anglers reported better success on the tuna, one problem was having to deal with all of the aggressive black skipjack were dominating the surface activity where the tuna had been more prevalent in recent weeks.

There was a mix of billfish found as well. Mainly blue marlin, sailfish and striped marlin. The best marlin action was for striped marlin around the corner on the Pacific, but there were also fair numbers being found off of Chileno and sailfish seemed to prefer the warmer waters in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. Also an occasional wahoo strike was reported, with a handful of 25 to 40 pound fish being accounted for, the fall season is typically when these largest members of the mackerel family become more active and scores of anglers arrive to specifically target this elusive highly sought after game fish.

Not much action reported off the bottom, though a few nice grouper were landed and a mix of pargo species. This in the same area of La Fortuna to Iman where there was surface action highlighting the activity.

The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita sent out approximately 82 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 1 blue marlin, 3 striped marlin, 9 sailfish, 2 wahoo, 8 grouper, 34 various pargo, 155 yellowfin tuna and 810 dorado.??