WEATHER:   While the week started off great, with the daytime highs to the low 90’s and nighttime lows in the mid 60’s, at the end of the week the clouds moved in and the wind picked up.  As of the weekend we were having winds from the northwest to 18-20 mph with partly cloudy skies and the average temperatures had dropped by 8-10 degrees.  No rain came with the front system, but it definitely cooled things off.

WATER:  As a result of the winds later in the week, what had been smooth 2-4 foot swells with light breezes on the Pacific side turned into sheep farming by Friday.  Everywhere you looked there were whitecaps and swells that had kicked up to 4-6 feet with a few larger ones.  Boats that fished south of the Cape early in the week started reporting the wind and swell increase on Tuesday and by Thursday the effects were right off the Cape.

BAIT:  Mackerel was easily available at the usual $2 per bait and there were also Caballito at the same price.

FISHING:

BILLFISH:  Striped Marlin this week were found either close to shore, within 10 miles on the Pacific side or far out, past 30 miles to the south.  While there were fish spotted, there were not many of them that were hungry.  Looking at the flags flying as boats returned for the day and talking to the guys who were out there this week, the fish were either going to eat right away or disappear before you could get a bait to them.  My guess is that only 10% of the boats had a decent shot at a Striped Marlin this week and about half of them hooked up, with some of these fish lost.  From that I guess you can tell that the percentages were pretty low.  I did hear rumors of a large Marlin, either Blue or Black, being landed early in the week.  This fish was reported to be in the #400 range but I never heard anything more on it.  With water this cold it would be surprising to me to have one out there, but you never know.  There were a few more Swordfish hooked this past week in the cool, green water to the southwest with the largest reported at #250.  These fish were reported to have eaten live Mackerel.

YELLOWFIN TUNA:  Once again it was mostly football Yellowfin this week.  The majority of the fish were found south at 30+ miles early in the week before the wind picked up.  Later in the week the fish may have been there still, but it was too rough for most of the boats to get there.  As a result of the wind more boats fished on the Cortez side of the Cape and around the warm water sot south of the Seamount there were reports of fish averaging 25 pounds with a few to 50 pounds mixed in with the white bellied dolphin.  There were massive pods of these dolphin reported off of the Pacific side in the area of the San Jaime Banks, but with the pods reported to be 3 or 4 miles wide and long, it was difficult to find any fish with them.

DORADO:   I did see several Dorado flags early in the week but nothing over this weekend.

WAHOO:  Wahoo are in the same category this week as Dorado, with the red flags seen flying but I believe they were all for Sierra!

INSHORE: There was a giant school of small Yellowtail found on the Pacific side up at Los Arcos early in the week.  Thank goodness the wind kicked up, as there may be some of them that escaped to reproduce.  A lot of the Pangas were going out and loading up on them, and these were small fish in the 5-pound range.  I hated to see this as for many of the guys there was no reasoning with them, it was a “load up while you can, the hell with the stock’ mentality.  There were a lot of the Captains however that limited their clients to only a couple of these for dinner, then took off to look for larger fish.  My hat is off to these guys; they care about the future of the fishery here.  Also inshore there were scattered Pargo up in the rocks as well as a few larger Yellowtail to 40 pounds just off the bottom in 120 feet of water.

NOTES:  I hope the winds die down, but it looks as if it may continue to blow for the next four of five days.  Normally this type of wind only lasts three days then we get three days of good weather.  It remains to be seen if we will have the same pattern this season.  There are still whales around but they are getting ready to return to the north.  No music this week, I wrote this report to the sounds of the wind blowing, my dog snoring and one of the cats crying for treats.  Until next week, tight lines! 

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