A Hint of Things to Come

Brian Kelley, wearing the white cap, with three of his buddies celebrating his 50th birthday with a fat one …Mark Rayor.

Endless Season Update 10/10/2009REPORT #1186 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996

East Cape

The first serious north wind of the season arrived late this week along with grouchy seas that caused short days for some.

Still seem to be enough fish around to keep things interesting; it is just tougher to find them. There were a few porpoise schools found closer to shore that did produce some tuna for the first handful of boats that found them.

Dorado action was also a little sketchy with most boats finding only a few, if any, but there are still some skipjack and football sized tuna out in front of the lighthouse.

As usual the beach was trashed from the wind waves which created difficult conditions for the beach walkers.

The good news is the winds are predicted to subside soon and hopefully the bite will pick right back up.

Current East Cape Weather http://tiny.cc/EastCapeWeather303

Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico

Well so much for the quickie trip last Friday. By the time I arrived at the border a small tropical depression, Olaf, had turned and was headed on an erratic path for Baja’s midsection.

Since my trip only allowed for a few days of fishing with little or no wiggle room, I delayed the trip until this Monday.

Turned out to be a good call; Olaf dumped plenty of rain from Cuidad Constitution to Mulege. There were a few washouts and one group driving down reported 30 water crossings during their trip from the border to East Cape.

The storm left unsettled conditions but they seem to have dissipated by the end of the week.

So I will be driving down the peninsula Monday, the 12th, with a stop planned in Mulege to check out some rumors of large snook appearing in the Santa Rosalia River. Then on to Lopez Mateos to fish both beach and offshore for three days with Lance Peterson, our Mexico Guide.

I will return on Monday, the 19th, and should have an update on the aftermath of the recent storms.
Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150

Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico

The 80° blue water has cooled down a bit from last week, and has moved in very close to the beach. This should improve the fishing, but we have had a series of hard rains and wind and a full moon period, combined with few clients fishing. An accurate picture of the fishing action is hard to describe at best.
The average for sailfish is about one or two a day per boat, and few nice size dorado are also being taken.
Inshore, there are a lot of small jack crevalle, and even a few sierra, but the roosterfish bite also seems to have died off. However, we also had strong surf all this last week, so the roosters have moved offshore, and should move back in when the moon phase affects the surf to a lesser degree.…Ed Kunze

Current Zihuatanejo Weather http://tiny.cc/zihuatanejo582


Cabo San Lucas

Striped marlin and sailfish are being seen close to shore on the Pacific side, but the water conditions on the outside have many of the boats focusing their efforts on the calmer Sea of Cortez side of the Cape. There are reports of blue and black marlin hook ups in the San Jose area, but just not in the numbers that were on the Pacific side. But, these fish, like those found out to the west, were not really in the eating mood.

There are respectable numbers of yellowfin tuna farther offshore on the Pacific side. However, running 30 to 40 miles in the grumpy seas was not in the books for most of the boats. A few of them did make it out to the fish, however, so there were few tuna flags flying. Heading out 30 miles put you in the area, but it was tough to spot the porpoise; when the chop began, they seemed to disappear!

Dorado seemed to like the conditions a bit choppy and most boats were coming in with at least four or five fish, averaging 12 to 15 pounds, and some had a few larger fish to 40 pounds. Most of the action was on the Pacific side of the Cape close to the beach.
There were some wahoo taken just off the beach, but most of the boats were fishing for dorado, so you know there were a lot of fish lost due to monofilament leaders!

The pangas working the bottom did find some decent catches of small grouper and snapper. And for pangas that were surface fishing, there were catches of dorado and the occasional striped marlin and sailfish. George and Mary Landrum

Current Cabo Weather http://tiny.cc/cabo191