REPORT #1096 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996
East Cape
This has been another ‘cookie cutter’ week with that pesky north wind never too far away. Best bet continued to be the inshore or the beach early mornings until the wind shows up and then it is time to hot foot it back to the casa or hotel. Good sierra action with a few small jacks, roosters and ladyfish on south facing beaches. Also a few skipjack schools to bend the stick for giggles. Mark Rayor reported “I went out in a tin boat yesterday and murdered the sierra and white bonita.
Water temperature 67-73
Air temperature 55-76
Humidity 81 %
Wind: NNW 11 to 15 knots
Conditions: Partly Cloudy
Visibility 4 miles
Sunrise 7:03 a.m. MST
Sunset 5:48 p.m. MST
Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico
The much anticipated whale migration has begun and a few are beginning to filter into the bay. A few more weeks and the bay should be filling up with the welcomed visitors. They always provide a fun time for the family.
Out at the Entrada, there has been plenty of action for sierra and a few firecracker yellowtail beneath the bird schools feeding on sardine and red crab. Inside the esteros, the corvina and grouper have been the best bet.
According to the few yachts traveling up and down the coast, the offshore water has cooled and continues to be slightly offcolor.
Water temperature 66 - 73
Air temperature 45 -75
Humidity 54%
Wind: NW 8 to 11 knots
Conditions: Partly Cloudy
Visibility 6 miles
Sunrise 7:13 a.m. MST
Sunset 5:53 p.m. MST
Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico
The week started out looking promising. It is January, and historically one of the best months of the year for sailfish. Plus, the new moon was yesterday, the 8th. We are (theoretically) going into the best two weeks of the year.
But a cold water current has moved in, moved the blue water to way offshore, and the game fish have either left the area, or are too sluggish to feed.
Yesterday, Adan, on the panga Gitana II, managed the best numbers for the fleet. His clients from Denmark released three sailfish and got two nice dorado. But the average per boat was way down. It is less than one fish per boat.
The inshore is the same story; with cold water and an absence of game fish.
Fortunately, the cold water current is a current, and conditions can change in 24 hours. We are keeping our fingers crossed.
Ed Kunze
Water temperature 80 - 84
Air temperature 75-95
Humidity 83%
Wind: Calm
Conditions: Clear
Visibility 5 miles
Sunrise 7:19 a.m. CST
Sunset 6:27 p.m. CST
Cabo San Lucas
Our guide, Lance Peterson, along with Baja on the Fly client, Kurt Jones, Houston, TX, and his 14 yr. old son, Conner, had an interesting day out of Cabo on the Baja Raider. The Golden Gate Bank was holding good numbers of marlin and it didn't take long for us to tease up some hot fish. On the first hookup, we had one of those "Murphy's Law" events when a loop of line got caught up on the rod leading to the abrupt loss of both the fly line, and the rod tip! The next available fly rod was my Cam Sigler 10wt. The bite was on so I rigged the 10wt. for marlin and we got back in the game. Before too long, Kurt was tight to his first ever fly rod marlin...on a 10wt! He landed it in 35 minutes. Not to be outdone, Conner stepped up to the rod. I wasn't done coaching him on what to do when we had a marlin teased up. He presented the fly and the fish ate. Fish on! With some help from Kurt, this stubborn fish also came to the boat. We finished the day with 10 fish raised, four hooked and two landed. Not bad for first time marlin fishermen with a 10wt!
WEATHER: Here at the end of the week, we are in a wintertime heat wave as our morning temperatures have been in the high 60’s for the past four days and the daytime highs have been in the mid 80’s. The skies have been clear and there has been no rain.
WATER: On the Sea of Cortez, from a line due east of Cabo and north of that line, the water was green and cold with the water at 71 degrees and dropping down to 69 degrees off of Punta Gorda. All the banks on the Pacific side, the Finger, Golden Gate and the San Jaime, had water at 73-75 degrees and the water was considerably cleaner. The 95 Spot, 1150 and the Cabrillo Seamount were on that line and for the most part saw the warmer, cleaner water. Surface conditions were good all week long close to home. There was an occasional day of breezy conditions on the Pacific but nothing too uncomfortable. Up on the Sea of Cortez, once you went north of the Punta Gorda area, the northerly winds made fishing very uncomfortable.
BAIT: Just like last week, the bait was mostly mackerel, but there were a few caballito in the mix. These larger baits were the normal $2 per bait. Up in San Jose there were sardinas available at $25 a scoop, but they were tiny ones with the biggest only 2 inches…better for chum than as bait.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Striped Marlin were the fish of the week, no doubt about that. Almost every boat that went out caught at least one, and if they wanted to work at it a little bit there was no problem getting into double digit numbers. The great thing about it was you did not have to go far for them. If you wanted to burn the fuel, the water allowed a trip to the Finger Bank, and there were still great concentrations of fish there, but closer to home you did almost as well and did not spend so much time in transit. Most boats did just fine drifting live bait but I always like it better when the fish appear in the lure pattern and you get to drop back a rigged bait and see them eat it. We had several clients this week that did just that, only they dropped back a streamer on a fly rod and hooked up!
YELLOWFIN TUNA We still have not seen any solid concentrations of Yellowfin this season. Once in a while a boat will find a school with porpoise but they have been few and far between, and the size of fish has been lacking, most of them have been football fish. They have mostly been found on the Pacific side outside the banks, but a few schools were reported within a mile or two of the coast on that side as well.
DORADO: I saw a few more Dorado flags this week than last week and we are hoping that the water stays clean and above 70 degrees for a while longer, maybe we will continue to find them. I had a friend get two fish in the 30-pound class early in the week up past the Golden Gate Bank, and there are still scattered fish in the 10-15 pound class being caught close to the beach on the Pacific.
WAHOO: I did not hear of any concentrations of Wahoo this reporting period but I did see one of about 70 pounds being wheeled along the Marina in a cooler, a really nice fish!
INSHORE: There was no change in the inshore report for this report period. Sierra were the fish of the week for the inshore fishermen and they were consistently on the feed off of the Solmar-Finesterra beach early in the morning. They seemed to move up to the north later in the day. Yellowtail continued to produce scattered action off of the rocky points on the Cortez side with some decent fish being taken off of Gray Rock and the drop at Chileno.
NOTES: We are seeing more whales every week. The weather has been great, my golf game is sadly lacking consistency and my ears had a treat as I wrote this report while listening to some cuts from the CD collection “Watching the Dark, the history of Richard Thompson”, a 1993 release by RYKODISC. Until next week, tight lines!
George & Mary Landrum
Water temperature 80 - 84
Air temperature 55-74
Humidity 83%
Wind: WNW 7 to 9 knots
Conditions: Sunny
Visibility 4 miles
Sunrise 7:02 a.m. MST
Sunset 5:50 p.m. MST
Bahia Asunción
Local guide Manuel Arce Aguilar a nice yellow caught recently. kalicosloco@yahoo.com
Water temperature 62 - 70
Air temperature 52-70
Humidity 76%
Wind: NNW 12 to 17 kts
Conditions: Partly Cloudy
Visibility 6 miles
Sunrise 7:30 a.m. MST
Sunset 5:58 p.m. MST
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