FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
http://captgeo.wordpress.com/
Cabo Fish Report
November 7-13, 2011
WEATHER: Wow, it just keeps getting better every day! Daytime highs in the low 90's and nighttime lows in the low 70's, does it really get any better than this? We had partly cloudy skies for most of the week and toward the end of the week we had some really blustery days, Saturday was a bit windy in the afternoon. No rain here in town but it looked as if there might have been some in the mountains.
WATER: Surface temperatures were 84 degrees close to Cabo from the shore to about 5-8 miles out, then they dropped to 81-82 degrees. The water stayed at 84 degrees up toward San Jose. On the Pacific side it was in the cooler side with most of the water 81 to 82 degrees. Thee was a plume of warm 84 degree water that ran from the tip of the Cape toward the west and across the southern end of the San Jaime Bank for several days. Mid week the water on the Pacific side was a bit on the rough side due to the winds, but it calmed down at the end of the week. Swells on the Pacific side were in the 4-6 foot range and in the 2-3 foot range on the Sea of Cortez.
BAIT: It was still tough to get good bait this week, some of the bait guys were bringing it down from San Jose but by the time it got here after an hour of running full bore and pounding and slapping on the way it was a bit beat up and did not last long in the bait tanks. It's hard to justify spending $30 on live bait just to have it die within 4 hours so a lot of anglers were opting to just buy a few and see if they would be able to catch something else to use later on. Caballito and Mullet were $3 each, or sometimes $4 each depending on the supplier. There were some sardinas, but not many and they were pricy at around $35 a scoop.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Small Blue and Black Marlin as well as a decent showing of Sailfish combined with an increasing number of Striped Marlin kept anglers excited this week. The big news was the increase in the number of Striped Marlin being caught. For the boats that were able to get farther up the coast toward the north side of the Golden Gate Bank there were plenty of Striped Marlin to see, and many of them were hungry. A good day was three releases, a great day was 5 releases but the average was one or two per day. Mackerel are beginning to show up and the water is cooling down so perhaps we are going to have a good season on these billfish. Some of the private boats that have been fishing in the Mag Bay area have reported that the Striped Marlin bite is almost wide open so if the fish continue to move in our direction....well, remember 4 years ago? Look out buddy, better put new line on them reels!!
YELLOWFIN TUNA: What a change! One week the Tuna fishing was world class and then it tanked for five or six days. I don't know the reason but the fleet was getting skunked just three days after one of the best Tuna Tournaments we have had in a long time. At least by the end of the week the fish had started to show up again. This is not to say that there were no Tuna being caught because there were, and they were nice ones, it's just that the school fish we had been seeing in the 25-40 pound class seemed to have disappeared. Boats were still getting some of the larger fish in the 100-200 class. We had one party that caught a 65 and 45 pound tuna and that made everyone happy because it had been slow.
DORADO: The Dorado continue to bite and have become the bread and butter of the charter fleet for the past few weeks. Most of the fish have come on live bait slow trolled in areas where the fish have been found after getting strike on a lure. Averaging 12 pounds, they have not been large but there have been enough of them for most anglers to limit out if they want to. A few larger fish have been caught but anything over 30 pounds has been rare. Almost all the action has been on the Pacific side of the Cape between the lighthouse and the inside of the Golden Gate Bank.
WAHOO: Never a very common fish, the approach and arrival of the full moon helped in the catching of Wahoo this week. My guess is that about 50% of the boats fishing close to shore for Dorado had at least on bite from a Wahoo. The problem of course is the razor sharp teeth these fish have. Slow trolling a live bait on 80 pound monofiliment line is not the ideal way to keep one hooked up! If you use a wire leader you won't catch very many Dorado, so there were quite a few bite offs from Wahoo. Nothing is quite as frustrating as seeing a splash behind your bait and pulling it in just to find that the back half has been surgically removed.
INSHORE: Still no reports of Sierra that I have heard of, but we did have a client that managed to get a 20 pound Yellowtail this week by jigging close to the bottom in 200 feet of water. Most of the Pangas were focused on the Dorado and Marlin because they were close to shore and not far from home.
FISH RECIPE: posted on the blog Thursday or Friday. We have been really busy the past several weeks and promise to get a new one up this week!
NOTES: Let's see. Perfect weather, great fishing, sunshine, the whales are beginning to show up, guess it's time to make travel plans! We hope you manage to take advantage of our present conditions and visit Cabo soon. This weeks report was written to the music of Cory Morrow on his 2010 release “Brand New Me”. You really need to check him out, my heartfelt thanks to Mark Bailey (once again) for introducing me to this album! Until next week, tight lines!
Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
November 11, 2011
This is now peak Fall Season for the Los Cabos region and tourists are now arriving
in large numbers. The weather is just about perfect now, highs in the low 80s, lows
mid 60s, sunny skies, varying winds, now becoming more predominate from the north.
We are now enjoying very pleasant weather conditions.
Water temperatures averaged in the 80/83 degree range throughout this past week.
Clean blue water, baitfish on the fishing grounds, things looking good, but ever
since the passing of the WON Tuna Event, anglers have found that the fishing action
has slowed and spread out more, anglers were having to patiently search for limited
catches of yellowfin tuna, dorado, wahoo, sailfish and other species. There has been
heavy pressure now for months on baitfish schools and anglers had to search and
often wait to find available sardinas and caballito from the commercial pangeros.
The season’s first northerly winds blew in on Tuesday, gusting to 25 mph through
most of day, on and off several days, though tapering off compared to that first
day. This made for very wet and choppy seas, more powerful towards the north,
anglers could find protected calm waters towards Cabo San Lucas and on the Pacific,
a difference of thirty nautical miles can mean a huge difference in wind patterns in
this area.
Anglers did report yellowfin tuna off of the La Fortuna, Iman and Gordo Banks. These
fish ranged from 20 to 100 pounds, the largest tuna found were the fish schooling on
the Gordo Banks, conditions seem to shut down action, though quality yellowfin are
still on these grounds and with water temperatures still favorable we should see
continued opportunities of finding cow sized tuna. The action was slow this past
week, wind did not help at all, with the breezes residing this will hopefully help
put things back on track. These tuna have been striking various baits, dead, live or
chunk, with lots of chum needed to get them up in the feeding mood anglers reported
success while using lighter and longer fluorocarbon leaders. On La Fortuna and the
Iman Bank, catches included yellowfin tuna, wahoo, rainbow runner, sailfish, pargo
and bonito, no significant numbers, mainly in ones or twos,
Trolling with live chuihil on the Gordo Banks was producing hook ups on yellowfin in
recent days. Only a handful of fish being accounted for now, some of them quality
sized, there are fish in the area and any given day this bite could bust wide open.
Despite these things the majority of people are having a good time.
Dorado were more numerous in the direction of Cabo San Lucas, trolling medium sized
lures to find the schools and then using bait worked well on fish in the 5 to 20
pound size. Wahoo have been slow to become active this season, spotty action for the
past month, this weekend, on Saturday, was the first time these fish really went on
a frenzied bite, for the handful of panga anglers that were trolling the Iman Bank
on this morning, they reported taking as many as a dozen big strikes for wahoo,
landing up as many as 6 fish per boat, sizes up to fifty pounds, some anglers did
not have as high of hook up ratio. Anglers had most of these strikes while trolling
live caballito or chuhuil, some wahoo also hit high speed trolled lures. Very
encouraging news on the wahoo and there were favorable reports also from the Gordo
Banks, as larger sized yellowfin tuna were accounted for the past couple of days.
On November 20, the planned La Playita Wahoo Tournament is scheduled, a one day
event with various jackpot categories, also the keys to a new car will be up for
grabs in a separate raffle. Hopefully the wahoo will wake up in time for this event,
which either way will be a fun event.
The combined panga fleets launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out
approximately 248 charters for the week, with anglers accounted for, 2 blue marlin,
3 striped marlin, 23 sailfish, 68 wahoo, 226 dorado, 118 yellowfin tuna, 9 dogtooth
snapper, 14 yellowtail, 18 rainbow runner, 44 pargo, 30 triggerfish, 35 bonito 6
pompano and 12 hammerhead shark.
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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