WEATHER:???? Now I remember why we have all the tourists come and visit us this time of year, the weather is great!?? Our morning pre-sunrise temperature this morning was 70 degrees and at noon we had only 87 degrees, sunny skies and a very light wind here in town.?? It does not get much better than this.?? There was no rain this week but we did have the wind pick up a bit at the end of the week, mostly from the northwest.

WATER:?? The water remained in the 80-83 degree range for another week.?? The water on the Pacific side was in the 83-degree range across the San Jaime and Golden Gate band and up to the Finger Bank area.?? Inside close to shore it dropped a degree and farther out it dropped a degree.?? On the Cortez side the temperature was a pretty constant 82-83 degrees anywhere within range.?? Later in the week the surface conditions worsened on the Pacific side as the swells kicked up a bit and the wind started to blow, early in the week you could go anywhere at a good speed.

BAIT: ??Larger baits were a pretty even mix of Caballito and Mackerel at the normal $2 per bait and there were plenty of Sardinas available as well both in Cabo and up in San Jose at $20 a scoop.?? If you wanted to catch your own bait there were plenty of Mackerel to be found just in front of the lighthouse on the Pacific side in 100 feet of water.

FISHING:

BILLFISH:?? This weeks billfish report is almost an exact repeat of last weeks.?? I had a couple of days where I was able to get to the finger banks to check out the reported Striped Marlin action and found that the reports had not been exaggerated.?? There were balls of bait everywhere and as soon as you got onto the shallows there were feeding Marlin everywhere you looked.?? On both trips we ran out of bait quickly and due to time restraints returned to trolling lures.?? We did not go more than 10 minutes before hooking into singles and doubles.?? We may have been able to get triple hookups but did not want to put three lines out.?? There were still Striped Marlin on the Golden Gate bank and toward the shore from there for the boats that were not able to make the long run to the Finger Bank but the conditions were a bit more crowded and the fish a bit more scattered.?? A few Blue Marlin were reported form the Cortez side of the Cape and I did hear of one nice Black Marlin being caught and released by a boat drifting bait for Striped Marlin and the Golden Gate Bank.

YELLOWFIN TUNA:?? Yellowfin were the fish of the week as we had the Western Outdoors Tuna Tournament take place on Thursday and Friday.?? With 127 teams entered as last I heard and there being no mile boundaries, boats were able to range wherever they wanted in order to find Tuna.?? This worked for at least four boats as there were four Tuna weighed that were over 100 pounds.?? The largest was #189, the second was #172, the third in the #150 range and the fourth (out of the money) was #135.?? There were plenty of fish that were over the qualifying weight of 40 pounds but almost all of these school fish were found at least 30 miles out.?? Closer to home there were plenty of football sized fish to be had just outside Gray Rock and up on the Pacific side just off the beach are by boats chumming with Sardinas and fly-lining live ones on small diameter leader.

DORADO:?? The Dorado were scattered this week and the best bite remained on the Pacific side just off the beach 20 miles up.?? Boats that slow trolled live Mackerel did well, averaging 5 fish per boat with an occasional Striped Marlin in the mix.?? On the Cortez side there was no real concentration of fish except for the Inman Bank area, and even there, there were no large numbers.?? The fish averaged 12 pounds this week.

WAHOO:?? The Wahoo bite really dropped off this week but that may have been because most of the boats were concentrating offshore for the Yellowfin.?? There were still a few of them caught, but there were no concentrations of fish out there.

INSHORE:?? In a repeat of last week, the football size Yellowfin Tuna were the target of most of the Pangas this week, but there were still plenty of Roosterfish to be found on both sides of the Cape.?? At the end of the week most of the Pangas were fishing on the Cortez side due to the wind.

Notes:?? Striped Marlin fishing on the Pacific side ant the Finger Banks was wide open this week, double digit numbers for all boats that were able to make the trip.?? The wind picked up at the end of the week but is supposed to lay back down on Monday so our fingers are crossed that the fish will remain in the area, or come closer to us.?? I saw my first Gray Whales of the season on Tuesday, a pair of very large 50' + animals just off of the lighthouse on the Pacific side.?? Until next week, tight lines!