REPORT #1138 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996
East Cape
Just to set the record straight, daylight savings time officially ended in Baja last Sunday morning, one week earlier than in the United States.
Today is picture perfect in East Cape, exactly how you would expect it to be in late October.
In the billfish sector, the sailfish led the way this week, spiking the action up to a handful of shots a day with a few stripers and even a very occasional blue showing.
Dorado action went off five miles from the beach, while tuna rounded out this week’s catch. Some of the luckier boats in the right place at the right time caught as many as five tuna up to 100 pounds.
The continuing swells from the north winds dirtied the water along the beaches. Still, there was enough bait to attract small roosters and jacks to keep things interesting.
Water temperature 76-84
Air temperature 71-88
Humidity 87%
Wind: NNW 10 to 13 knots
Conditions: Partly Cloudy
Visibility 6 miles
Sunrise 7:23 a.m. MST
Sunset 6:42 p.m. MST
Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico
Jan Forszpaniak, Naples, Florida, displays one of his many dorado released while fishing at Magdalena Bay
The tuna bite was outrageous on the fly! Kurt Ransohoff of Santa Barbara and Tom Lorish from Portland, Oregon, ended their trip with limits of thirty pound fish, though at a price. Several of their flylines went south and at least one 12wt was a couple of feet shorter. After each of them caught their first marlin on the fly, they left planning Magdalena Bay planning their next trip.
Along with the marlin, the dorado did show on bait balls out towards the Thetis bank.
Shrimp season is in full swing in the Esteros. Several areas including Santo Domingo and Devil’s Curve began to produce several small snook and some leopard grouper up to ten pounds.
Bob Hoyt
Water temperature 78 - 85
Air temperature 71 -87
Humidity 87 %
Wind: NW 11 to 14 knots
Conditions: Mostly Clear
Visibility 7 miles
Sunrise 7:33 a.m. MST
Sunset 6:48 p.m. MST
Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico
The full moon, and last week's hard rain, slowed the fishing down this week. The blue water had moved out to the 20 mile mark, and the inshore water was discolored by the heavy runoff out of the rivers.
This next week looks very promising. The rain season is all but over, and we are getting out of the moon phase. There was not much action this week, with the boats averaging less than a sailfish a day each. A few dorado showed in the counts, and this could develop into a decent bite as the current lines become more defined.
A few small roosters were reported, but finding a decent stretch of clean water made for a lot of fishing, and very little catching.
Ed Kunze
Water temperature 80 - 84
Air temperature 74-93
Humidity 84%
Wind: E 8 knots
Conditions: Clear
Visibility 5 miles
Sunrise 7:44 a.m. CST
Sunset 7:16 p.m. CST
Cabo San Lucas
BILLFISH: Striped marlin were in abundance if you were fishing either on the Golden Gate Bank or just to the inside of there. We had groups this week that were doing double-digit fish every day, between 12 and 15 striped marlin releases per day, and a few that were in the two or three per day range. If you were in the right place at the right time with the right equipment the fishing was outstanding. Live bait was the key for the large numbers, and finding the bait balls was the most important thing of all.
As far as the blue marlin and black marlin were concerned, the catch numbers from the Bisbee tournament speak for themselves. One hundred forty one (141) boats fishing three days makes for 423 fishing days; catching two fish over 300 pounds means one decent fish per 212 days’ of effort. Of course if you were the boat that was across the board in the jackpots and caught a 313 pound marlin on the last day, you were not complaining about taking home a check for over two million dollars. Sigh.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: There were more yellowfin caught for bait for the Bisbee tournament than between all the charter boats combined. Having 60 boats all tossing out cut sardinas and live chum in a very small area tended to concentrate the bait and the tuna. Yellowfin to 15 pounds were caught in decent numbers every morning right in the middle of the bait along the drop-off. Farther offshore there were fish showing amongst the Dolphin, and they were ranging in size from 20 to 120 pounds. Smaller lures than most of the boats were pulling, I mean lures from 6 to 10 inches in length and in darker colors resulted in decent numbers, but live bait dropped in front of the moving schools resulted in the larger fish.
DORADO: There were plenty of dorado out there this week and most of them were pretty close to home. The area between the Cape and Los Arcos on the Pacific side put out the largest numbers of fish, but the average size was down a bit from last week, with 10 pounds being the average size. There were still many fish in the 25-35 pound class, but there were very large numbers of smaller fish as well. That bodes well for the next month as these fish can gain as much as 5 pounds per month in weight.
INSHORE: There were some small Rrosterfish to 15 pounds with the average around 8 pounds caught this week. Live mackerel were the main bait used and most of the fish came from fairly close to home, between the Hacienda Hotel and the Chileno Bay. Most of the Pangas were concentrated on the dorado bite instead of the traditional inshore species.
George & Mary Landrum
Water temperature 73 - 85
Air temperature 73 - 93
Humidity 87%
Wind: NW 6 to 8 knots
Conditions: Sunny
Visibility 6 miles
Sunrise 7:23 a.m. MST
Sunset 6:44 p.m. MST
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