We are seeing quite a few striped marlin, with 65% of the boats releasing one or two fish. Many that did not get marlin were targeting dorado or tuna. Along with the warm water came the blue and black marlin. There were several blues to 400 pounds and a fifteen-year-old girl released a marlin estimated to be 250 pounds. As is usually the case, find the bait, and you find the fish.

The small tuna were holding near shore around the Chileno bay area and offshore along the 1,000 fathom line. Near shore resulted in striped marlin and a few black marlin; working the bait offshore resulted in a few striped marlin and all the blue marlin. The yellowfin bite slowed though a few to 100 pounds were still being found around the Gordo Banks, but you had to be there early to get hooked up. Offshore, boats were finding small pods of dolphin that held school and football-sized fish averaging 15 pounds. Almost every boat that went out caught at least one dorado and some of them were nice-sized fish! We had one client who fly fished for three days; on the first day he released a striped marlin and kept a dorado of about 12 pounds, the second day he caught two dorado of about 15 and 18 pounds and on the third day he hooked up a dorado estimated to be 40+ pounds, only to lose the fish close to the boat after a long fight. Most of the fish were found close to shore (within four miles), just to the south and 15 degrees either direction.

Red snapper dominated the inshore as the rocks were producing for guys using live or cut bait. The key was to get the bait as close to the foamy pockets between the rocks without getting hung up, and fishing with the drag set at almost full in order to get the fish away from the rocks quickly. Many of the pangas took advantage of the dorado and did a lot of fishing just off the beach.