Hi Mike
It
should be an ideal time for Striped Marlin. Certainly last year though the water in Cortez heated up prematurely. Surface temperatures of 83 degrees F - right on their upper range - were recorded, but that is unusual.
I'm not too certain precisely where Las Bariles is, or which fleet you'd intend to fish with but I suspect the crews would, if they're 'thin on the ground' run out into the Pacific targeting them. As well as the 'Stripers' though you'd expect all of the other species to be present with the exception of Blue and Black Marlin and larger Yellowfin.
As to the illegal longlining it looks as if pressure's starting to tell. There's now an embryonic organisation, the Center for Marine Protection, based at La Paz that working in close liaison with the Mexican Navy's enforcement operation. Hopefully that's deterring some but obviously it's a big area and rewards are high. You may want to keep tabs on this site -
http://www.bajaevents.com/. It does seem to keep up to-date which have a bearing on tourism.
As to fishing reports I'd certainly review some of George Landrum's posts on the Trip Reporter forum of the
http://www.marlinnut.com web site. As well, even though the main focus, is on fly fishing it's worth visiting the
http://bajafly.blogspot.com/ web site.
A final suggestion, assuming he hasn't noticed the development of this thread, is that you sent a private message to Toby, who posts under the nom de plume
Kingfish81, on this site. Toby fished from pangas in, I believe it was, June of this year. He's certainly got comprehensive information on Cortez. There's also
MarktheShark who I know has fish the area on a number of occasions.
Kindest regards
Dave