East Cape in the Starting Gate

East Cape
Off to the races? Everybody is still standing in the starting gate waiting for the door to fly open! The weather is cool and comfortable; unfortunately the water is also cooler than usual and seems to be influencing everything. Basically, inshore and offshore the bite has its moments with some boats coming in with multiple flags while most have few if any. Plenty of billfish are being seen but few bites, the theory being they are plumb full of squid. Tuna are racing around and if you get lucky and bump in to them your rod will get bent for sure. If you think I am kidding, a few boats ran as far as 50 miles for a bunch of footballs while some guys fishing from the beach at the lighthouse got spooled a lot and still landed two yellowfin from the beach that weigh 40+. Only at East Cape! Speaking of the beach, that has been the best bet all week for our clients. Every client caught at least one rooster from the beach and one had four, plus two jacks. Most of them were in the low teens while several Bubbas demonstrated how they got so big. Putting in the time on the beach has definitely paid off. Who needs those stinking ATVs? We are headed up to Magdalena Bay to pick a fight with Mr. Snook – more on that next week. If you have a hankering for a rooster on the fly and aren’t here you are in the wrong place!

Baja on the Fly
Water temperature 68-80
Air temperature 73-93
Humidity 69%
Wind: SSE 4 mph
Conditions: Clear
Visibility 10 miles
Sunrise 6:32 a.m. MDT
Sunset 8:01 p.m. MDT

Magdalena Bay , Baja Mexico
Still some wind to contend with this week that kept most of the anglers close to the beach. The corvina bite lit up at Lopez Mateos with double digit catches the norm. A few snook hooked and lost after they scurried back into the mangrove stumps. A few snapper were caught at Devil’s Curve. Offshore, the tuna seemed to be in the 20 mile range and outside of Lopez Mateos the dorado continued put on a show only a few miles from shore. Everybody is just waiting for the water to warm up a few degrees and the exotics should kick in nicely. We will be fishing with clients for the next few days out of Lopez Mateos and will have a first hand report next week.
Water temperature 62-71
Air temperature 66-73
Humidity 77%
Wind: WNW 17 mph
Conditions: Scattered Clouds
Visibility 6 miles
Sunrise 6:36 a.m. MDT
Sunset 8:13 p.m. MDT


Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico
The 80° plus blue water is still just a mile or so off the beach. The outstanding fishing for the blue marlin has made this run one of the absolute best in years. We are boating between 18 and 20 blues or blacks a week. These are very good odds for catching a marlin, because we are not considering the numerous missed opportunities, and all of this is from only a fleet of about 10 boats a day hitting the water. This last Tuesday, the fleet boated 5 marlin. Remember, these are not those dinky striped marlin you read about in Baja. Stripers are not much larger than a sailfish. These blues and blacks are averaging about 250 pounds, with several hitting the 500 pound mark.

Besides releasing 5 sailfish on Thursday for Texas clients Jeff and Wayne Bair, Captain Santiago on the panga Gitana, also had a blue marlin on Wednesday. Clients Sonny and Magi Stolsig of Seattle got the blue marlin on sailfish gear while trolling a cut bait. They fought the 330 pound blue for a little over two hours on the 50 pound gear. After a spectacular series of greyhounding leaps, the marlin sounded and died. It took Santiago another 45 minutes of hand lining to get the fish to the boat.

I fly fished with Mike Poor and Ralph Logan of Lubbock, Texas. After raising a double on sails, but only teasing one to the boat, the sailfish was so aggressive, Mike had the opportunities and missed twice with the fly. Bad habits developed from trout fishing, by setting the hook with the rod tip, just do not work here on salt water big game. You must set the hook with a hard strip of the line. After the third attempt, the fish lost interest, so I pinned an 8" live goggle eye on a circle hook, made the cast and passed the rod to Ralph. A few minutes later, we tagged and released Ralph's first ever sailfish

Baja on the Fly report by Ed Kunze
Water temperature 80 - 84
Air temperature 80 - 89
Humidity 66%
Wind: WSW 8 mph
Conditions: Scattered Clouds
Visibility 5 miles
Sunrise 7:10 a.m. CDT
Sunset 8:18 p.m. CDT

San Jose, Guatemala
The weather this past week has been nice during the day with occasional showers in the evenings. The winds have remained light and variable and pick up temporarily during the showers. Since we led this condition report with the weather you have probably figured out no one fished this week.
San Jose, Guatemala report by Brian Barragy and Lissa McFarlin
Water temperature 78 - 82
Air temperature 82- 84
Humidity 79%
Wind: WSW 4 mph
Conditions: Thunder Storms
Visibility 7 miles
Sunrise 5:34 a.m. CST
Sunset 6:28 p.m. CST