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From Jan 01, 1999 To May 16, 2008
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May 12, 2008; 11:33AM - Cabo Bite Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: George Landrum
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Author E-mail: gmlandrum@hotmail.com
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Report Description:
FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
May 5-11, 2008
WEATHER: It looks like things are changing a bit down here. This week we had mostly cloudy skies, a bit of wind at the middle of the week and no rain, but it felt like it should have rained. Our nighttime lows varied between 68 and 75 degrees while the daytime highs were in the high 80’s to low 90’s. With the cloud cover the humidity kicked up a notch.
WATER: The Pacific side of the Cape was cooler than the Cortez side at 68-70 degrees and was off color as well. The greenish water wrapped around the Cape through the middle of the week and crossed into the area of the 95 spot. On the Cortez side of the Cape the water was much warmer, and the farther up to the north you went, the warmer it got. In the area of Punta Gorda and the Gorda Banks we were marking water as warm as 81 degrees, and it was blue water. Elsewhere on the Cortez side (offshore) the water was in the high 70’s and pretty clear.
BAIT: Mackerel and Caballito were available at the new price of $3 per bait, and there were Sardinas at the Palmilla are at $25 a scoop.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: There were a lot of Marlin to be seen on the surface up in the Palmilla area close to shore but they were stuffed with squid and did not want to eat. Lucky boats were catching one or two per trip. There were a few decent Sailfish coming from the same area as well. There was not a lot of action on the billfish front but I am awaiting reports from a few friends that went up to fish the warm water on the Cortez side, they should be back early this coming week. My fingers are crossed.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: A few boats caught a few small football sized fish after the seiners left the area. Overheard on the radio were reports of them talking to each other and bragging about stuffed holds, guess they took all the fish.
DORADO: A few small fish were caught close to home, but the concentrations we had earlier were with the Tuna, guess the seiners got most of them too. I am hoping the warmer water to the north on the Cortez side holds more and they will work their way down to us.
WAHOO: What Hoo? New moon phase.
INSHORE: Green water on the Pacific side had most of the Pangas fishing the Cortez up around Palmilla point. These boats were getting some decent Sierra and Amberjack as well as some Snapper and Grouper. Bait of choice was Sardinas.
NOTES: Bad news was the seiners showed up again and wrapped all of the fish, the government allows it and now we don’t have anything to fish for. The good news is that the water is warming up and we should have a new mass of fish moving into our area soon. I really don’t know how else to put it other than the fishing this past week was extremely poor. My fingers are crossed that the government does something to regulate the encroachment of Seiners into the sport fishing areas. Tuna from the seiners goes for $480 a ton to the packing plants; wonder how much that same fish is worth in income from sport fishing? Enough said, I don’t want to get into trouble. Until next week, keep your fingers crossed for tight lines!
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May 12, 2008; 01:09AM - Gordo Banks Panga report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: eric
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Author E-mail: none
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Report Description:
Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
May 11, 2008
Anglers -
Ideal time to visit Southern Baja, clear sunny skies with highs in the 80s, crowds are lighter than usual and fishing action is steady enough to please most serious anglers.
Ocean conditions have been a bit unpredictable, but on most days anglers were able to find comfortable seas. Water temperatures ranged from 73 to 77 degrees, with the warmest currents now found near Los Frailes. Mackerel were scarcer, but sardinas remained plentiful, particularly in the area of the Puerto Los Cabos Marina Jetties.
Striped marlin were found in significant numbers from La Fortuna to Desteladera, the marlin could be seen feeding and at times anglers were able to jig up their own bait when they were found schooling on the surface. The cruiser fleets launching from Cabo San Lucas had better access to larger baitfish such as mackerel and caballito, so they were able to target the billfish more efficiently.
The local panga fleets had a variety of options, one of them was on the Inner Gordo Banks, where they targeted yellowtail and dorado ranging in the 20 to 40 pound class These fish were hooked into while slow trolling sardinas on the surface. The yellowtail were seen in significant numbers, but were proving a bit finicky and lighter tackle resulted in more hook ups, but also more lost fish, because these yellowtail were extremely powerful and found many different ways of gaining their freedom, one of them by going straight down and cutting anglers lines off on the nearby rocky high spots. There were a few days early in the week where cross winds resulted in choppy conditions and some anglers opted to fish in more protected areas closer to shore. There was good action found for sierra, roosterfish, yellowtail and Mexican bonito found off of Palmilla and to Chileno. Most of these fish were ten pounds of less, but provided great sport on lighter tackle, again trolling with live sardinas was the best technique, though yo-yos and rapalas also produced well.
After the yellowfin tuna schools were all but decimated last week by the seiner fleets
Working the fishing grounds near Cabo San Lucas there were new schools of tuna that moved back into this same region, only to be followed once again by the commercial seiners, not the dozen or more vessels that had initially raped the area the previous week, but nevertheless several of the larger sized seiners with their helicopter pads on top. This situation seems to be turning more political, common sense would acknowledge that these vessels stay clear of such a populated tourist zone, but authorities higher up apparently are showing how influential they really are and that these are their oceans and they will do as they please. Maybe it is time for the U.S. residents to consider boycotting purchasing tuna that is captured from Mexican waters.
A variety of snapper were found, though this bite was not consistent from day to day, a couple of days saw anglers catching nice pargo near the surface on the Gordo Banks, also a few pompano, cabrilla and amberjack mixed in.
The combined panga fleet launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 55 charters for the week and anglers reported a fish count of:
2 mako sharks, 8 striped marlin, 17 yellowfin tuna, 142 yellowtail, 24 dorado, 8 pompano, 13 cabrilla, 6 amberjack, 78 Mexican bonito, 74 roosterfish and 122 sierra.
Good Fishing, Eric
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May 6, 2008; 02:13AM - San Jose Del Cabo Panga Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: eric
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Author E-mail: none
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Report Description:
Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
May 4, 2008
Anglers -
Tourism continues to be at below normal levels due to the poor economy in the U.S. The area endured a heat wave this past weekend, just as residents throughout Southern California felt. Ocean conditions were mostly calm with cleaner water moving closer to shore, water temperatures ranged up to to 76 degrees, continuing to steadily warm as the summer season approaches.
Anglers are finding a variety of species, from yellowfin tuna, dorado and striped marlin offshore, to sierra, yellowtail, roosterfish and pargo closer to shore. Sardinas remained abundant around the Puerto Los Cabos Marina jetties. Mackerel were scarce, there were some smaller sized skipjack that could be caught on the fishing grounds for use as bait for striped marlin. Most charters were accounting for one to two dorado per outing, sizes ranged up to 25 pounds, fish were striking a variety of lures as well as trolled baits. The bite for small sized yellowtail continued to be strong off the main beach hotel resort area off of San Jose del Cabo, mixed in were Mexican bonito. The Inner Gordo Banks area was producing a handful of 30 pound class yellowtail for anglers working yo-yo iron jigs, a few huachinango (red snapper) were taken by this same manner. Over the weekend anglers reported seeing yellowfin tuna in the 200 pound range feeding and breezing on the surface of the Banks, but these fish could not be enticed into taking any offerings, even though they would feed on chummed sardinas. One grouper of 130 pounds was landed on 30 pound tackle off of Palmilla Point, the story was that a small sized yellowtail hit on a trolled rapala and once hooked headed to deeper water, where the grouper ambushed the fish and became hooked on the same set up, lucky to land such a specimen on such light tackle.
Last week we talked about the Mexican Navy patrol continuing to seemingly pick on the local La Playita panga fleets, inspecting the same pangas over and over again for their proper paper work, fishing permits, safety equipment etc... Not exactly the best method to help promote the already slack tourist industry. Over the weekend a true crime was witnessed in the areas just offshore of Santa Maria to Chileno, this is the region where the yellowfin tuna had finally moved in and were producing limit style fishing action for the local sportfishing fleets, not overly large fish, but very fun and tasty, averaging 10 to 20 pounds. A commercial fleet consisting of one dozen full sized purseiners moved within two to five miles from shore, proceeding to set their nets and capture hundreds of tons of these juvenile sized yellowfin that could of have provided continued action for the sportfishing fleets for months to come. But, they have all but been decimating now, only a few straggler tuna are now being caught. What a shame that the government still has not put an end to this type of corruption, it makes you wonder if the Navy armada was paid off with some mordida to look the other way, but how could they expect to get away such a crime in front of such a large city where they were operating in such easy view of everyone? Even if these commercial vessels did have legal permits to fish in these waters, you would think that they would have intelligence and courtesy not to do so blatantly in plain sight of so many people. The same Navy patrol boat captain who has been in charge of harassing the local panga fleets was asked why these purseiners were allowed to come so close to shore and set their gear, his answer was simply that they are paying good money so they deserve these fish. Great, that really makes the sportfishing community feel good, we definitely know where their priorities are. All we can do is let the public know what has happened and hope that somehow we can put the pressure on the authorities to do their jobs. In a real world this rogue Navy Captain should be detained and all of the puseiners involved should face punishment, including confiscation of their vessels. Doubtful anything will even come of this, it did appear on National T.V. and in the local papers, so perhaps fleet commanders will feel some pressure.
The local panga fleet launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 41 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a catch of: 2 mako shark, 17 striped marlin, 36 dorado, 124 yellowtail, 118 Mexican bonito, 166 yellowfin tuna, 18 roosterfish, 7 pompano,122 sierra, 28 combined pargo species and 12 cabrilla.
Good Fishing, Eric
GORDO BANKS PANGAS
Eric Brictson
Owner/Operator
800 4081199
Los Cabos 1421147
ericgordobanks@yahoo.com
www.gordobanks.com
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May 5, 2008; 10:48AM - Cabo Bite Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: George Landrum
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Author E-mail: gmlandrum@hotmail.com
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Report Description:
FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
April 28-May 4, 2008
WEATHER: We had just another week in paradise with our daytime highs varying between 90-95 early in the week and 85-90 later in the week. Our nighttime lows varied as well with 75 early in the week and 65 later in the week. That nighttime low of 75 on Monday and Tuesday night forced us to turn on the air conditioner! We had partly cloudy skies all week long with winds at 10-15 knots from the northwest with occasional higher gusts.
WATER: There was little change in the surface conditions from last week. The Pacific side of the Cape had swells at 3-5 feet and the Cortez side had 1-3 foot swells. The water temperature on the Cortez side was a pretty even 74-76 degrees from the shore out to around 12 miles, then it became 67-69 degrees for another 12-20miles, then there was a pretty strong break where it warmed right back up. On the Pacific side the temperature remained around 66-69 degrees. On the Pacific side from the Golden Gate and across the San Jaime Bank and toward the beach the water was a fairly dirty green, the closer to shore you got the dirtier it got. This plume of cool, green water extended to the south of the Cape keeping the water outside the 1,000-fathom line that dirty green.
BAIT: There was plenty of bait this week as the larger boat brought in plenty of Mackerel to sell to the Panga bait boats. With the small moon the bait boats were able to catch plenty of Caballito as well. This week the bait was the usual $2 per bait. When we purchased bait on Saturday, our supplier informed us that as of this coming Wednesday all the boats were raising their prices to $3 per bait. Keep in mind there has not been a raise in the bait price for almost 8 years, so this is not unexpected.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Once again the billfish were very easy to find this week, all you had to do was get out on the water. From just off of the lighthouse on the Pacific side around the Cape to the Punta Gorda area they were everywhere. Early in the week they were on the surface sleeping and tailing. Unfortunately, they were also full! They may have been stuffing themselves on squid once again, but for whatever the reason, you could throw baits to 25-30 fish and be lucky to find one or two that were hungry. A few boats resorted to drifting live baits deep, and this technique did work a little better than trolling lures while casting bait to fish on the surface. As the week went on the fish seemed to move up the Cortez coast just a bit and then back to in front of the arch. At the end of the week the ratio of fish baited and fish hooked improved a bit and most boats that tried to work Marlin were able to catch between two and four per trip, definitely an improvement over earlier in the week. Mackerel was the bait of choice; Caballito just didn’t seem to get the fish interested. The Striped Marlin averaged around 120 pounds.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: At the beginning of this week all the purse seiners we had out front last week had gone north, leaving us with just “scales drifting down” where before we had great fishing. Of course the fish were not around, they had all moved out or had been scooped up in the nets! Well, on the positive side, on Saturday this week the fish re-appeared just two miles out off the arch and lighthouse. These fish were also a bit larger with most of them between 20-30 pounds with a few pushing 40 pounds. One hour in the fish resulted in 16 Yellowfin for one of our groups of anglers. Almost anything worked, as these fish were very hungry. I went up on the Cortez side on Saturday and we got into a very larges group of dolphin with birds everywhere and large schools of bait showing up on the depth sounder. No Yellowfin though, and I could see two super seiners just on the horizon to the north, off of Los Frailles. I wonder if they had already gotten all the fish?
DORADO: The warmer water out front brought more dorado into our area and most boats were able to get at least one or two fish per trip. One of my friends was fishing up off the Punta Gorda area earlier in the week and found a dead whale that had been around long enough to attract quite a collection of life under it and was able to limit out on fish averaging 15 pounds. There were a few fish in the 30- pound range there as well. Everywhere else the bite was just all right with bright colored lures and live bait fished for Marlin getting the most fish.
WAHOO: The moon phase might be wrong for Wahoo this last week as I did not hear of any of them being caught.
INSHORE: Our anglers tat fished off of Pangas this week continued to do well with a varied catch including Roosterfish to 15 pounds, Sierra to 8 pounds, Yellowtail to 15 pounds and an assortment of bottom fish such as snapper and grouper to 10 pounds. The majority of the fish were found just off the beach on the Pacific side but when the late afternoon winds kicked in the afternoon trips worked off of Gray Rock and Cabo del Sol for the same type of fish. On Saturday, when the Yellowfin showed up so close to the arch, almost every Panga out there was in the mix, and they all did well. Quite a few of the Pangas were working just off the beach for Marlin as well throughout the week, and were averaging just about the same as the cruisers.
NOTES: The Seiners left, that’s good news, there are Tuna out front again, that’s good news! Live bait is going up in price on Wednesday, that’s bad news! I’m done with this week’s report, that’s good news! Until next week, tight lines! Give a listen to the music of an old Fender Stratocaster player, Dick Dale on his album “Spatial Disorientation”, that’s weird news!
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Apr 28, 2008; 12:20PM - Cabo Bite Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: George Landrum
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Author E-mail: gmlandrum@hotmail.com
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Report Description:
FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
April 21-27, 2008
WEATHER: I guess that I probably don’t say this enough, but I have to let you know that this is just about my favorite time of the year for the weather. We have had morning lows in the mid to high 60’s and our daytime highs have just reached the low 90’s. The week began with mostly cloudy skies on Monday and on Tuesday afternoon they started to break up. The wind was kicking in a bit early in the week as well. The clouds brought no rain and after they were gone the winds were very light, just enough to put a light chop on the water in the afternoon. The week ended on a very nice note with clear and sunny skies and light winds.
WATER: The Pacific side of the Cape had swells at 3-5 feet but spaced well apart. On the Cortez side south of the Punta Gorda area things were nice with swells at 1-3 feet. On the Pacific early in the week and up past Punta Gorda the winds kicked it up a notch and the water was choppy. On the Pacific side the water temperatures were lower than on the Cortez side with 69-71 degree water almost everywhere. The temperature break was a straight line north to south off of the lighthouse on the Pacific side. East of the break the water warmed to 75 degrees and out at the Cabrillo Seamount late in the week we had some water as warm as 82 degrees for a day or so.
BAIT: This was a tough week to get bait; the bait boats were working hard at snagging Caballito right at the mouth of the marina and were not having a lot of luck. I heard of quite a few instances of bait boats charging as much as $5 per bait. That is high, but not bad if it is the right bait, but the fish definitely preferred Mackerel, and the Caballito are not in very good shape after being snagged. In other words, bait was scarce this week, and expensive.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Once again there were plenty of Marlin out there but the bite was still off. There were plenty of squid in the area and the Marlin were stuffed. A few boats were doing all right on Mackerel (a scarce bait this week) and a few fish were caught on Caballito, but the majority of fish were hooked on artificial lures. The Striped Marlin were all over the place from a mile off the arch to 5 miles off of Gray Rock, you had no problem finding fish, but they were not very hungry. On the Billfish side of things, I heard that several weeks ago there were three or four large Blue Marlin, one in the #800 and a couple on the 500-600 pound class caught right out front when these small football Yellowfin first showed up. I didn’t hear of them at the time, but was told of them yesterday by a very reputable Captain.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: Yellowfin Tuna were the fish of the week, at least at the beginning of the week, and are also the “rant” fish of the week. At the start of the week, under the cloudy skies, hordes of football size fish, from 8 to 20 pounds showed up jut off the beach from 2-5 miles from the arch. All the tuna you wanted were available and everyone limited out on fish. On Wednesday the Purse Seiners started to show up. On Wednesday there were 6 boats out there, on Thursday there were 9 boats, on Friday and Saturday there were 13 boats, at least 8 of which were super Seiners over 200 feet long and with spotting helicopters n the decks. They were fishing these tuna just 2 miles off the beach. The marines went out and stopped two of the boats and chased them away, but said that the others all had permits to fish there. These fish have hold that can carry 1,500 TONS of fish. Needless to say, at the end of the week a good day on the water resulted in a dozen or fewer tuna for the sport fleet. There were the occasional nice fish; the largest I heard of was a double on fish in the #70 class.
DORADO: The warm water has resulted in an increase in the numbers of Dorado being caught. Most boats are getting a fish or two a day; on Saturday we caught four Dorado between 12-18 pounds. They are in the same area as the tuna and marlin, right in among the Seiners. A live Caballito dropped back after a hook-up resulted in at least one of our fish, the others bit on bright colored lures.
WAHOO: There were a few Wahoo caught, again in the warm water out front, but not many of them. Average size was reported at 25 pounds.
INSHORE: The warmer water resulted in fewer Yellowtail being caught this week, but an increase in the numbers of Roosterfish. The Roosterfish are still on the small side with an average weight of around 5 pounds. Live bait was tough to come by so while the Caballito were large, there were not many of them and the ones anglers used were getting pounded hard by the Roosters. Most of the hook-ups were a result of luck, as the baits were much too large for the fish. The Sierra bite has dropped off as a result of the warmer water but the Pargo and grouper bite has become better. With the Tuna so close to shore, many of the Pangas were targeting them, and they had good luck.
NOTES: The Tuna Seiners had everyone up in arms, especially late in the afternoons when they started to set nets around the few sports fishermen that stayed out. I had thought that they were not allowed by law to fish any closer than 20 miles form the beach, and not at all within the Sea of Cortez, but I must have misunderstood the rules. Anyway, I overheard more than one local crew complain and talk about doing something, but since the Marines are letting them fish, it must be legal (right?). If we saw these numbers between one and 6 miles off of the beach, imagine how many more are just beyond the horizon. If these boats continue to fish right in front of Cabo, look for the numbers of all species caught by the local sport fishing fleet to drop off quickly. I remember what just 2 of these boats did to the fishery on top of the Gorda Banks six years ago; it took four years for the fishery there to recover. The Pangas and fishermen out of San Jose ended up ganging together and throwing rebar anchors into the middle of the Seiners nets while they were fishing and powering out, ripping their nets up. Until next week, keep your fingers crossed!
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Apr 21, 2008; 01:31PM - Gordo Banks Panga report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: eric
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Author E-mail: mine
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Report Description:
Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
April 20, 2008
Anglers -
As the weather steadily warms, the ocean currents are also changing and the migration of Gray and Humpback whales are now heading north towards their summer feeding grounds. Average water temperature throughout the region are now ranging from 69 or 70 on the Pacific to as high as 77 degrees in areas towards the Sea of Cortez. Supplies of live mackerel have been limited, some days anglers encountered schools of these baitfish on the fishing grounds, but that was not a guarantee. Sardinas were now congregated around the Puerto Los Cabos rock jetties. The majority of sportfishing fleets are now concentrating efforts in the direction of the warmer water, from Chileno to Vinorama.
The main area for striped marlin activity in recent days was from the Gordo Banks , Desteladera to Vinorama. Most hook ups were on live bait and for anglers that did not have the bait they reported that it was not easy to entice the fish into striking the lures. Even with bait the marlin at times just were not interested, though scores of the stripers were seen free jumping and tailing on the surface. The billfish were averaging 100 to 150 pounds.
Yellowfin tuna action became more scattered this past week, schools had moved within several miles offshore of Chileno, but this bite slowed, turning to black skipjack and now the few tuna that are being found are once again further offshore, sometimes associated with porpoise, but often just found by blind strikes.
With the warmer water temperatures a few more dorado are appearing in the daily fish counts, but the water has also been off colored, as currents clean up more we expect to see increased activity from these colorful prized gamefish. Most of the dorado that are now being found have been by trolling lures and are ranging in sizes up to 25 pounds.
Sierra action highlighted the inshore options, very good numbers of these fish were found from Westin Regina to Chileno. Live sardinas accounted for most of the action, though casting jigs, rapalas and hoochies also were working. The average sized sierra was two or three pounds, but many fish weighing over five pounds were also accounted for. A handful of small sized roosterfish were also being encountered off these same stretches of beaches.
Yellowtail snapper are biting on the shallow rocky reef areas, typically in water depths of fifty feet or less, striking on sardinas and weighing up eight pounds. Off the deeper rock piles it has been the Mexican bonito that have continued to dominate the action, only an occasional amberjack, huachinango or cabrilla mixed in.
Surf fishermen reported that the area around La Playita and the Estuary produced a handful of nice sized halibut weighed up 25 pounds, the anglers were using mullet and sardinas for bait.
The combined panga fleet launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 47 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
9 striped marlin, 92 pargo (combined species), 124 Mexican bonito, 9 amberjack,
18 cabrilla, 16 yellowfin tuna, 7 dorado, 15 roosterfish and 212 sierra.
Good Fishing, Eric
GORDO BANKS PANGAS
Eric Brictson
Owner/Operator
800 4081199
Los Cabos 1421147
ericgordobanks@yahoo.com
www.gordobanks.com |
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Apr 21, 2008; 11:54AM - Cabo Bite Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: George Landrum
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Author E-mail: gmlandrum@hotmail.com
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Report Description:
FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
April 14-20, 2008
WEATHER: Once again we have had a week of sun and fun here in Cabo. This time of year the spring break crowd is gone, the number of cruise ships calling at our port is down and the temperature has started to climb. Not too high, just into the low 90’s during the day and the low 70’s at night, but that’s just perfect for me! With this kind of weather a lot of our friends have returned from the cold north while many of the winter residents have gone home to prepare for spring back there. Just a very nice time of the year!
WATER: We have had light afternoon breezes for the first part of the week changing into light morning breezes later in the week, but nothing heavy enough to cause problems out on the water. A prevailing northwesterly direction has meant that the water on the Sea of Cortez has been very nice with only slight swells and wind chop while the Pacific side of the Cape has had slight swells and mostly slightly choppy conditions. Water temperature on the Pacific side has remained cooler than on the Cortez side with that wrap around the Cape from the east I mentioned last week still happening. Offshore on the Pacific side it has been 67-69 degrees while closer to the beach, say 4-5 miles off the beach and 10 miles to the north the warmer 74-degree water has prevailed. Of course the cooler water has meant green conditions and on the Golden Gate Bank reports were of very green conditions. On the Sea of Cortez we have had consistent 74-75 degree water across all the areas with just a slight tinge to it.
BAIT: There were many more Caballito available this past week than there were Mackerel, and they were both the normal $2 per bait. I did not hear anything about Sardinas.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: You didn’t have to go far this week to find Striped Marlin, but you had to have the right bait and a good amount of luck to catch one! Early in the week the bite was good up at the Punta Gorda area later in the afternoon and there were not many fish in our area, but on Wednesday the suddenly showed up in large numbers. It was not uncommon to spot pods of three to fifteen fish less than four miles form the arch, and often within a mile or less. The problem was that the fish were not very interested in Caballito, and that was the bait most common from the bait boats. Mackerel was preferred by the Marlin that were hungry. Being off the feed was probably due to them feeding all night during the full moon phase (tonight is the full moon). What they have been feeding on also had an effect! There were balls of 12-inch squid everywhere, and almost every species of fish caught this week was stuffed with them. Captains and anglers who were on top of their game and lucky enough to get a fish to the boat were ready with a bait net to catch any fresh squid spilled from the Marlins mouth, and some of them were lucky enough to be on top of one of the squid balls when the marlin forced them to the surface, managing to net a few live ones to toss out. Guaranteed catch if that happened! But, alas, for the most part boats were lucky to catch one marlin after throwing bait to dozens of lazing fish.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: The tuna bite in our area dropped off again although a few boats were able to get into small pods of porpoise that were holding then. The tuna that were caught were not large ones; most of them were in the 10-15 pound range. A good catch this past week would have been four or five tuna. Most of them were found to the south at a distance of 10 miles and more, a few more were found around the 1150 area. Red and orange colored lures in the smaller sizes sort of imitated the squid they were feeding on.
DORADO: Once again the numbers of Dorado slowly increased over the numbers caught last week. It seemed that about 20% of the boats were flying a yellow flag or two when they returned this week. Most of the fish were found in the same areas as the Striped Marlin and they were also stuffed on squid. One nice thing is that the average size has been fair, not a lot of the little slipper size (5-8 pounds) were caught, most of the fish were around 12-15 pounds.
WAHOO: What Hoo once again, and I was surprised since we are in a full moon phase. Maybe the water just has to warm up a bit more?
INSHORE: There were reports from the anglers and Captains of large numbers of small Roosterfish once again just off the beach on the Pacific side between the arch and the lighthouse. These fish have been pounding small Caballito and the boats often had to return for more bait. The size was small with an average of 5 pounds, but a few larger ones, to about 15 pounds, were caught in the same area every day. I had an angler tie into a very large Sierra on Tuesday in this area. He fought the fish on line around 15 pounds in strength and said the Sierra would have weighed about 20 pounds (this is an experienced angler and Captain saying this). Of course when I told them that it might have been a possible line class world record they were mad they had filleted the fish! There have been some nice Pargo in the 20-30 pound class start to show off of the rocky points and live bait slow trolled deep has been the key for the larger ones. Adding to the excitement of fishing this way is the possibility of hooking up to some of the 30-40 pound Yellowtail that are still around. There are still many of the smaller ones, but as I said last week, not in the numbers we had been seeing. Even with the inshore action being good, many of the Pangas are targeting Marlin since they are so close right now.
NOTES: My golf game continues to improve; I am now consistently breaking 100. Don’t laugh, that is quite an improvement for me! I am looking forward to fishing this coming week; I just hope things keep popping out there! This weeks report was written to the sound of my dog snoring in the background, she had a hard day at the beach this morning! Until next week, tight lines!
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Apr 14, 2008; 12:33PM - Gordo Banks Panga report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: eric
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Author E-mail: email
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Report Description:
Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
April 13, 2008
Anglers -
We are now officially into the spring season, clocks have been sprung forward one hour, days are becoming increasing longer and ocean water temperatures are on a warming trend. Offshore fishing action moved closer to shore in recent days, as the gamefish were following the bait supply and cleaner currents that moved within only a couple of miles of the shoreline. Moderate crowds of vacationers are enjoying sunny days, with high temperatures reaching the mid to upper 80s. All around local tourism is substantially lower than normal for this time of year, all we can do is hope the economy improves soon.
Just a few days ago fleets were traveling some 20 miles offshore to find striped marlin and yellowfin tuna action. Early this week conditions rapidly changed, clean blue water moved close to shore in the areas from Cabo San Lucas to Chileno and both yellowfin tuna and marlin were found in substantial numbers. Concentrations of mackerel were schooling in this same region, striped marlin were found as close as one mile to shore in some instances, feeding on the balled up bait schools, charter boats were reporting multiple landings of stripers in the 100 to 150 pound class on a regular basis. Anglers had best success casting baits into the feeding marlin, but also there was a fair percentage of marlin being hooked into on trolled lures. Wednesday was particular wide open, every boat in the vicinity was telling stories of all the marlin they either seen feeding or were hooked up with. Tuna were striking on trolled lures, medium sized feathers, cedar plugs and rapalas, blind strikes, not associated with porpoise, once the schools were encountered, typically 3 to 4 miles from shore, multiple strikes were common. Mid week there were some high wind swells to deal with and this did slow down the tuna action. Marlin were actually found closer to the shore in more protected waters. Most of the yellowfin landed were weighing 10 to 16 pounds, though some fish to 40 or 50 pounds were reported, particularly on larger lures that were being trolled for marlin. A handful of scattered reports of dorado were reported, fish ranging up to 30 pounds, striking on the same marlin or tuna type lures. Water temperatures have varied from 64 degrees on the Pacific to as high as 72 to 74 degrees in the direction of the Sea of Cortez.
Other action included sierra and roosterfish along the shoreline, trolling various baits worked best for this action, the majority of these fish were in the 2 to 7 pound range.
A few of the juvenile sized yellowtail were still taken off the shallow rock piles and to the north of Punta Gorda there were hungry schools of Mexican bonito providing fast and furious action. Limited reports for amberjack, cabrilla and huachinago (red snapper), though some quality fish were accounted for on yo-yo jigs, the key was finding an area that was not dominated by the bonito.
The combined panga fleet launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos area reported sending out approximately 55 charters for the week, with anglers having a fish count of:
7 dorado, 74 yellowfin tuna, 34 striped marlin, 17 yellowtail, 13 amberjack, 34 red snapper, 164 sierra, 15 roosterfish and 266 Mexican bonito.
Good Fishing, Eric
GORDO BANKS PANGAS
Eric Brictson
Owner/Operator
800 4081199
Los Cabos 1421147
ericgordobanks@yahoo.com
www.gordobanks.com |
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Apr 14, 2008; 12:10PM - Cabo Bite Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: George Landrum
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Author E-mail: gmlandrum@hotmail.com
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Report Description:
FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
April 7-13, 2008
WEATHER: The weather continues to slowly warm up as our nighttime lows have been in the high 60’s and our daytime highs have been in the high 80’s. There have been very few clouds in the skies this past week, just scattered around here and there for the most part. No rain has been seen to fall anywhere near us. Sun block of at least SPF-35 has been a necessity.
WATER: It appears that the California current has become weaker as the warm water on the Cortez side of the Cape has started to come across into the Pacific side over the week. The cooler water in the current has been forced offshore, outside the San Jaime Bank it is a cool 68-69 degrees while on the bank and up to the shoreline it is a warmer 73-74 degrees. On the Cortez side of the Cape we have mostly warm water in the 74-75 degree range. Surface conditions have been great this past week with small swells and very little wind.
BAIT: Mackerel was easily available at the usual $2 per bait and there were also Caballito at the same price.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: The Striped Marlin are re-appearing in large numbers now as the water has warmed up to their preferred 74 degree range, but they are not biting all that well. That is not to say there are no fish being caught; it just means that as far as the percentage of fish caught to fish seen, well, that is a low number. The positive side of this is that there are large numbers of fish being seen on the surface, small groups of three or four and larger groups that number up to fifteen fish. Most boats have been releasing two or three Marlin per trip, but throwing bait to forty or so fish in order to get those numbers. The area around the 95 spot has been holding large numbers of Striped Marlin, as has the area around the 1150.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: We had a wide-open bite on the football size fish this week as a large school moved to within 4 miles of the bay early in the week. Boats were getting 20-30 fish each before tiring and going on to fish for Marlin. These fish were averaging 8-10 pounds each with a few in the 20-pound class. They were biting anything you put in the water, but the larger fish were eating live bait dropped in front of the moving schools. Any boats that went out at 150 degrees ran into these fish on Monday and Tuesday, as the week went on the fish moved to the west. There were other scattered schools found, but with the bite so good close to home not many boats went much farther to look for larger ones.
DORADO: There continued to be a few fish caught this week and as the water warms up more we should expect to be seeing more Dorado. I had a report of a boat up at Los Barillas catching 27 Dorado after finding a dead seal and that is the type of thing that may begin to happen here. Not that we kill seals, but this time of year we begin to find kelp fronds and trash in the water that hold large numbers of Dorado.
WAHOO: What Hoo once again.
INSHORE: The numbers of small Yellowtail being caught has lowered this week, weather because they have moved on to water more in keeping with their preferred temperature or because they became fished out, I don’t know. But instead of filling coolers with these small 5-8 pound fish, boats are getting just three or four per trip. What has a lot of anglers excited is the number of Roosterfish that have been showing up just outside of the arch. There have been mornings when 20 fish have been caught and released by one boat, but the fish have been small with an average size of 5 pounds. Little guys, but when you use light tackle they are a blast to catch! The Sierra bite has fallen off a bit as well and with the smooth water conditions and the Yellowfin Tuna being close, a lot of the Panga fishermen have been going out for the Tuna.
NOTES: Maybe I’ll try this thing I’ve been trying to get to use next year, it does not look like I will get to use this technique anytime soon, sigh. Anyway, we had great fishing this week and I hope it continues, with the numbers of Striped Marlin we are seeing if they start biting it will be awesome. This weeks report was written to the music of John Lee Hooker on the 2006 Virgin Records release “Best Of Friends”. Until next week, tight lines!
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Apr 7, 2008; 05:42PM - Gordo Banks Panga Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: eric
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Author E-mail: none
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Report Description:
Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
April 6, 2008
Anglers -
As we enter the first full month of the spring season the Southern Baja California region has yet to change their clocks one hour forward for daylight savings time, it appears strange to see the sun high in the sky by 7 a.m., this situation will change this coming weekend, it always seems to feel like more of a dramatic change when waiting an extra month to spring forward. Weather conditions are ideal, highs into the low to mid 80s, not so chilly in the early morning and north winds are gradually becoming less dominant. Anglers are patiently waiting during this transition period as warmer currents slowly push back into the area, bringing with them the sought after pelagic gamefish.
Striped marlin action improved substantially this past week throughout the region, as scores of stripers are being spotted free jumping and tailing on the surface. One of the hot spots in recent days was from the Gordo Banks towards Desteladera, anywhere from 5 to 15 miles offshore. Charters targeting billfish were accounting for one to three fish per boat on an average, the majority of strikes came on mackerel, with a smaller percentage being hooked up on lures. Sizes were healthy, 100 to 150 pounds, with a few specimens even larger.
Yellowfin tuna continued to be found 15 to 30 miles offshore, sometimes with fast moving schools of porpoise, but at other times they were by blind strikes on lures, cedar plugs and feathers were both productive. Most of the tuna were under fifteen pounds, though there were reports of a couple of larger yellowfin accounted for that weighed into the triple digits. Dorado counts also jumped in recent days, as water temperatures up to 72 degrees were found on the outside. On Tuesday several boats reported encountering a dead whale carcass that was holding schools of dorado to thirty pounds, though the fish proved to be finicky at times and had a preference for live mackerel only. There were a scattering on dorado that also hooked into while trolling with lures on the marlin and tuna grounds.
The local panga fleets had been concentrating their efforts nearby off Palmilla Point for several weeks, this is where there had been big concentrations of yellowtail, mainly juvenile sized, with a few larger fish mixed in, anyway this action came to a standstill at the start of the week, even the bonito that had been schooling with the jacks appeared to have moved on, only the giant squid remained. Trolling along the inshore stretches of beaches produced sierra and roosterfish, most of these fish were striking on sardinas or rapalas and weighing five pounds or less.
Panga Charters are once again heading north to the Iman Bank, where catches have been dominated by Mexican bonito, yo-yo jigs, rapalas and sardinas are all catching fish. Also off the bottom rock piles there has been limited numbers or pargo, cabrilla and amberjack.
Whale watching season is winding down, the mammals are still being spotted daily, but numbers are significantly less, as the humpbacks and grays start their migration back north.
Be aware that in recent days the Mexican Navy has routinely been conducting on the water inspections of sportfishing charter boats, particularly having a vendetta against the pangas, make sure you have a valid fishing license, also boat owners need to be diligent about having all of their paper work and safety equipment in order. You would like to believe that any regulation problems could be taken care of back at the docks before the boats even launched, tourism is already slow in recent months and to have a heavily armed Navy Patrol vessel rapidly approach you while you on a relaxing fishing excursion can definitely be a bit nerve wracking to say the least.
The combined panga charter fleets launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 64 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of:
9 striped marlin, 33 giant squid, 28 dorado, 27 yellowfin tuna, 27 pargo, 9 cabrilla, 13 amberjack, 126 yellowtail, 285 Mexican bonito, 134 sierra and 56 roosterfish.
Good Fishing, Eric
GORDO BANKS PANGAS
Eric Brictson
Owner/Operator
800 4081199
Los Cabos 1421147
ericgordobanks@yahoo.com
www.gordobanks.com |
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