WEATHER: Hot and humid were the words to describe this week. Our daytime temperatures were in the high 90’s with 80% humidity and nighttime lows in the mid 80’s and no change in humidity. Mostly sunny skies this week, even on Saturday when we had a short downpour of rain the sun was shining!
WATER: The water everywhere was almost glassy on a few days with the Pacific side having small swells at 1-3 feet with gentle winds from the northwest. On the Cortez side it was just flat with a bit of wind ripple. Water temperatures on the Cortez side up around Punta Gorda were in the 88-degree range while just off the arch and on the Pacific side of the cape the water was a little cooler at 84-85 degrees. It was blue water everywhere you went.
BAIT: Caballito and Mullet were available at the normal $3 each but on a few days they were a bit harder to get. Boats going up the Pacific side were stopping at the Golden Gate Bank to make bait as there were some small, scattered schools of Mackerel down deep.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: The Striped Marlin bite has turned on, at least if you are willing to travel 50 miles to get to the fish. Realize that if you do this, the boat will likely charge a fuel premium for the trip. The Finger Bank turned on this weekend with several boats reporting multiple numbers of fish there. Captain Tony Nungary on “Tony’s Machine” had 17 releases in 2 hours while fishing a private tournament and Captain Jay Bush reported 22 releases but spending a bit more time in the area. Reportedly the fish were not feeding on bait balls but were being hooked on trolled lures and on dropped back baits. If this action continues we may have a repeat of the awesome action of last year. The Golden Gate Bank also had good action on Striped Marlin, but not quite the numbers of the Finger Bank as most boats working the southern edge were getting bit on deep dropped live baits, not covering much of the water but working around the deep bait balls, dropping, drifting across for 15 minutes then pulling the baits up, running back up-current and dropping again.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: The Tuna action this week was considerably slower than last week. According to Mike Tumbrillo, the owner of the 31’ Bertram “Renegade Mike”, his crew searched several days but were not able to find the big fish that had made an appearance last week. There were schools of fish in the 30-40 pound class to the west of the San Jaime Bank as well as 30 miles to the southwest, but the big boys were absent. Boats willing to go the distance did fairly well, averaging 2 to 10 fish per trip. Cedar plugs and green or dark colored lures run close to the boat worked well, with a few of the larger fish biting on live bait dropped back after a trolled lure hook-up.
