The Aries Sportfishing Fleet reported a difficult fishing week on the mainland side of the Sea of Cortez and they associated the drop in billfish numbers to the extended brightness of the full moon through the first quarter. The nights have been so clear that the brightness of just a little moon has made for difficult bait fishing and billfish catching. The overall combined counts for 23 days fished reflected 6 striped marlin, 4 sailfish, 10 dorado and 2 yellowfin tuna for the fleet. The inshore super pangas were doing better this week and reported in for 8 fishing days that reflected 1 robalo, (black snook) 7 corvina, 2 dorado, 3 jack cravelle, 1 palometa, 11 pargo, 30 mojarres and 69 roncachos for their efforts.

Mazatlan Climate: Excellent. Mostly sunny with an occasional passing cloud here and there and temps that ranged from 55 nights to 86 daytime highs.

Sea Conditions: Inshore waters a bit cool and off-color at 69 degrees and rising to 72 degrees at 5 miles and gradually increasing to 74-75 by 18 miles and bluing up to good clarity.

Best Fishing Area: The boats trolled far & wide over a great deal of water but were unable to locate any concentration of fish.

Best Bait/Lure: All of the billfish were taken on rigged trolling baits, mostly fresh mullet.

Bait Supply: No problem with the bait supply as the bait for this area is taken in the cast nets.