Dec. 04-10, 2006

WEATHER: I just love this time of the year! In the morning it is almost
cool enough to need a light jacket or sweater since it has been 60 degrees
the past few mornings. In the day it never seems to get much above 80
degrees in the direct sun and there is just a slight breeze in the
afternoons and evenings. We have had only partly cloudy skies this week and
of course, no rain. I don't believe I have seen conditions much better than
this for a long time!
WATER: The water is cooling down the farther we get into the winter season
and of course things change quickly. Our average temperature on the Cortez
side of the Cape has been about 76 degrees inside the 1,000 fathom line,
outside of there, past the Cabrillo Seamount, it is a few degrees warmer.
Just off of the beach it has been much cooler, as low as 73 degrees in some
spots. On the Pacific side of the Cape it has been a bit warmer with the
average temperature being 78 degrees with a band of slightly cooler water
just off of the beach. Over all our water temperatures seemed to have
dropped several degrees this week, but they can change at any time. Surface
conditions were excellent with just a slight swell and little if any wind
chop.
BAIT: A fairly even mix of Mackerel and Caballito were available at the
normal $2 per bait. I did not hear of any Sardinas in the area.
FISHING:

BILLFISH: The Striped Marlin bite that was happening for boats fishing the
Golden Gate Bank has fallen off a bit more than last week, there are still
some fish there but you are really scratching to get them. Fortunately for
us, the mass of fish seems to have moved closer to home and there are now
fish being caught daily off of the light-house ledge using the same
technique of deep dropping live bait and drifting across the holding area.
The size of the fish has varied between 60 pounds to 130 pounds with a few
of the fish way on the other side of both ends of that range. I heard of
one Striped Marlin of #30 being released and one of #220 being released. As
far as other billfish are concerned, I have not heard of any Blue or Black
Marlin in the past week, but there have been some Sailfish appearing in the
area, I had a good Panga captain report that he had released one that he
thought would have been an easy #200, the size of a large Striped Marlin!
YELLOWFIN TUNA: We finally had some Yellowfin show up this week! On
Thursday a few boats found the fish 13 miles to the west-southwest mixed in
with a few porpoise. There were birds working the area and the fish were
feeding hard on Mackerel and Flying Fish. With only a few boats there the
first day the fishing was good. The fish were so thick and aggressive that
boats were able to scoop bait from the water as they were taking shelter
under the boats! The fish varied in size from 25 pounds to 60 pounds with a
few fish on either size of that range. Friday the fish were still there but
only the first couple of boats had any bites, on Saturday it was a repeat.
We had a client that was the fist to the fish and he managed to score 8 fish
between 25 and 70 pounds, the second boat there caught two fish and the
other 15-20 boats that showed up caught maybe 5 fish between them.
DORADO: Even thought the Yellowfin finally showed up, Dorado remained the
fish of the week due to the consistency of the catch. Most boats were able
to get at lest one or two Dorado in the box, a few did quite a bit better
than that. The bite has remained on the Pacific side and has appeared
better closer to the beach, up around 15-25 miles to the north of Cabo. The
fish are hitting bright colored lures and slow trolled live bait and have
been averaging 20 pounds.
WAHOO: I saw the smallest Wahoo I have seen in a long time this week when
the same client who got into the Tuna caught a 4-½ pound fish on Tuesday.
With 5 days of fishing Lance was able to get at least one of every species
available, nice job Lance! Other than that, there were not very many Wahoo
reported from our area. I had heard that there was a halfway decent bite up
at the Inman Banks, but had no confirmed reports of those fish.
INSHORE: There are Sierra showing up, and starting to show in decent
numbers, but the target for most of the boats fishing inshore this week has
been Snapper and Grouper. None of these have been large fish and not in
huge numbers either, but at least they are great eating.
NOTES: Our Striped Marlin and Yellowfin Tuna fishing continues to improve
every week, my fingers are crossed that it continues. Meanwhile the
holidays are coming up and with my mother coming to visit for Christmas, a
lot of my time between fishing and working on the boat will be taken up with
getting the house ready for the visit! Until next week, Tight Lines!