Anglers - September 1, 2002 This week saw the weather change from sunny, hot and humid to very tropical and stormy. First it was the distant passing of tropical storm Genevieve, which had little effect besides a slight swell that developed, but as of Sunday morning, September 1, there was monstrous hurricane Hernan to deal with, it was predicted to follow a course towards the northwest, south of Socorro and Clarion Islands, it was packing wind speeds of over 150 miles an hour, the outer bands of rain were soaking the Southern Baja Peninsula and the seas are steadily developing to 15 to 20 ft. swells and predicted to become even larger. Anyway it looks as though we will be spared of a direct hit, but sportfishing fleets, especially the panga fleets will most certainly be shut down for a couple of days to start this coming week. Anglers did find good action for dorado for most of the week, fish were spread out and found in all directions, hitting on trolled lures and various baits. Water temperatures varied from 80 to 86 degrees, with the warmer waters found in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. Bait supplies have become scarce, with only minimal supplies of sardinas, mullet and caballito available. Boats accounted for average daily catches of 4 to 10 dorado, weights ranged from 10 to 40 pounds. Yellowfin tuna were still hard to find, though some anglers were luckier than others and found tuna scattered offshore, most of them were blind strikes, and the average tuna were of the football variety, though some of them weighed in the 50 to 100 pound class. Wahoo continued to be found by anglers trolling lures in the areas from Iman to San Luis Banks, for the people that specifically targeted them they were catching one of two of them per day in the 30 to 40 pound range. The Outer Gordo Bank showed increased action for black and blue marlin, the first big bite of the season. Many of the larger marlin were hooked up, trolling the bigger baits proved to be the hot ticket, though the baitfish were scarce, early in the morning small yellowfin tuna, skipjack and bolito were taking trolled hoochies and once they were rigged up for trolling it did not take long to hook into a marlin, they were very hungry, apparently the marlin knew that the hurricane was on the way and there chance to feed was right then. Of course there were many heartbreak stories of long loosing battles, but one monster black marlin was landed by a group of four local Palmilla and Playita pangueros, led by Arturo Castillo, the estimated weight was 700 pounds, the fish hit on a trolled skipjack and took 5 hours to bring to gaff. Other marlin were landed that weighed from 300 to 500 pounds, this is encouraging news for prospects of a great tournament season to come. Not much action to be found by anglers fishing off the beaches, the lack of baitfish has spread out the gamefish and for the time being everyone is waiting for more bait to move back in, which with the latest storm will now most certainly take even longer. Good Fishing, Eric