Mag Bay Marlin Stirring

Endless Season Update 11/29/2009
REPORT #1191 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996

Russ Weaver, Corvallis, OR displays one of many roosters being caught along the beach near Zihuatanejo.

East Cape

Russ Weaver, Corvallis, OR displays one of many roosters being caught along the beach near Zihuatanejo.

Cooler weather and a tad more wind as November comes to a close. Looks like a shower or two may greet December according to the weather predications.

Very few boats are heading out but when they do, fishing remains wide open. Yellowfin tuna refuse to quit...still nothing huge but enough for sashimi to go with leftover turkey. Dorado are still hanging around out in front of La RIbera .

Farther offshore the billfish haven't left the building. Not much concentration, just one here and there.

Inshore the sierra are the primary target for the tin boat fleet and the beach walkers are finding a mixed bag on the good days.

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

Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico

Offshore action remains a 'wahoo kind of deal'. Taylor Spurgen, San Diego, heard the reports and jumped on a plane, determined to catch his first wahoo. He must be an over achiever...he ended up with six wahoo up to fifty-five pounds, and then released another. This is the best wahoo year I can remember.

There have been encouraging reports of huge schools of marlin heading down the coast. Several boats stumbled onto the fish and racked up double-digit scores for a day's fishing. According to the reports the fish are traveling 5 to 10 miles a day. December could produce the WFO marlin action we normally get in November...HO HO HO!

Small tuna and dorado are still less than ten miles outside the Boca. A few anglers are fishing the tide in the esteros in the morning and then they are running out for a T & D afternoon.

Meanwhile back in the esteros, the action has not slowed. Live shrimp are producing the best action for everything from snook to corvina and everything in between.....Bob Hoyt

Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150

Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico

The 85° blue water still remains on the beach and the excellent fishing has not let up.

Offshore, the fleet is averaging two to three sailfish a day each, plus a nice dorado or two.

And, even with the hot water, an unusual run of cooler water loving small striped marlin moved into the area and are adding up in the daily totals. I guess they are either lost, or they do not realize they are late for their annual run up at Los Cabos.

Eric and Ellis Skidmore, of Bend, Oregon, fished two days with Captain Martin on the Gaviota (formally the Nautilus) releasing six sails, a striped marlin, and keeping two dorado.

From San Diego, the Lee Fleming family also fished a day with Martin on the Gaviota. They got four sailfish; one for each member of the family.

Bob Barker, from British Columbia, wrapped up his stay of fly fishing several days with Adan on the Gitana II, by getting two sailfish and a striped marlin on the fly rod, getting back to the dock just a couple of hours before his flight.

The inshore fishing remains fantastic. There is tonnage of sierras, which provided a special treat for Troy Evan's 8 year old son while fishing with Cheva on the Dos Hermanos. Plus, Troy also got plenty of action with a couple of 40+ pound roosterfish and several jack crevalle.

Commodore Ellis Skidmore (USN - retired), only 89 years young, also enjoyed the sierras by taking full Mexican limits for the entire crew, while fishing with Adolfo, Jesus, and me on the panga, Dos Hermanos II. We all ate sierra that night.

John Thodos of Illinois released three roosters and several jack crevalle while fishing two days with Adolfo and me on the panga, Dos Hermanos II. The largest rooster, also taken on the fly, weighed 42 pounds. We were fishing the area near the river bar at La Union and the Ranch, about 30 miles north of Zihuatanejo. We were consistently raising 20 roosters a day to the hookless popper, and another 30 to 40 jack crevalle. We have worked the area for four days straight now..…Ed Kunze

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

Cabo San Lucas

Scattered striped marlin are showing on both sides of the Cape, mostly small ones and by small I mean less than 50 pounds in weight! There were groups of stripers on the surface in numbers as high as 25 fish per group, but they were not very hungry. A few boats were able to release two fish per trip, but they were the exception, not the norm. There was also a flurry of action on blue and black marlin to 400 pounds close to shore on the Pacific side in a warm water band. Feeding on small dorado and skipjack, they surprised and tormented a lot of the anglers who had changed over to smaller tackle for the dorado and striped marlin.

Tuna were at the Gordo Banks. Using sardina as bait and light flouro-carbon leader, many of the boats were able to get two or three fish to 100 pounds by drifting over the high spots on both the inner and outer banks. At the end of the week, school sized fish averaging 25 pounds were found off of Palmilla Point.

The water has cooled a bit and the numbers of dorado have dropped off. Most of the boats are averaging 4 to 10 fish with a lot of small ones in the catch. A few of the boats have lucked out and found dorado under floating debris. Those few have recorded great catches of fish averaging 25 pounds, but these were few and far between.

This has been the best wahoo season in years; boats are still getting multiple fish each day if they focus their efforts on these speedy, razor toothed fish. They are mostly smaller than average with the majority of them ranging in size from 6 to 20 pounds.

A few of the pangas found large sierra and a few large roosterfish on the Pacific side. Most of the inshore action has been with snapper and small roosters as well as dorado.…George and Mary Landrum

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

Remarkable Thanksgiving

Captain Cary on the party boat, Success, returned from Mag Bay with a boatload of YFT's all over 200 pounds, with one over 371 pounds.

Endless Season Update 11/24/2009
REPORT #1190 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996

East Cape

Local Mark Rayor, Vista Sea Sport, commented that this was the nicest November since he moved to East Cape many years ago.

While I was talking him this morning, he reported that the fish were busting right in front of his house. Couldn't tell what they were, but they were creating a ruckus.

Tuna continue to dominate the action...nothing very large but hungry and close. Couple that with the best dorado bite this year and it's easy to understand why the locals are asking each other, "where are the tourists?"

Another November surprise is the consistent wahoo bite that has been happening recently. Throw in a few other species including striped marlin, sailfish, jack cravelle, skipjacks, cabrilla and pargo and you might call it a remarkable Thanksgiving .

For the inshore gang, it is sierra time and there isn't a happy hour worth its salt that doesn't have fresh cerviche.

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

Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico

While all the visiting yachts hightail it for home or somewhere in search of more fertile marlin waters, many anglers lucky enough to be in on the over the top action are nodding with big smug grins on their faces and saying "who needs those stinking marlin".

Captain Cary on the party boat, Success, returned from Mag Bay with a boatload of YFT's all over 200 pounds with one over 371 pounds.

Then there's the wahoo whack going on for anyone who targets them. So far the largest in that category exceeds 101 pounds.

Limits of small tuna are close to shore with enough dorado to keep it interesting.

And then...the esteros are exploding limits of pargo, a few grouper and the best snook snap in recent memory, if not ever, with a few fish hitting the 40 pound mark...Bob Hoyt

Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150

Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico

The 84° blue water is still on the beach. We have had almost a month of these conditions, and the good fishing has remained very close. Very few boats are going out beyond the 10 mile mark to average about 2 or 3 sailfish a day and a couple of dorado.

Bob Barker of British Columbia has been fly fishing this last week with Santiago and Adan on the Gitana pangas. He is averaging two caught sailfish a day and a dorado. They are averaging 6 to 10 raised sailfish a day, with 4 to 5 hooked fish, and leadering two.

Russ Weaver of Corvallis, OR fished with me down at Puerto Vicente Guerrero, and had a great day with 2 large roosters, 2 large jack crevalle, and 2 nice dorado. At times we had pods of 40 pound plus roosters chasing the teaser.

The very next day I went back down to Puerto Vicente Guerrero with Bob Barker and his fly rod. We had an incredible day! Cheva, who is 47 years old and has fished here all of his life, said it was his best day ever for roosters.

Cheva, of the panga, Dos Hermanos II, had a day off on his panga, so he went with me to cast the hookless poppers.

With Cheva casting, Jose Pino at the motor, and Bob fly casting to the teased fish, we raised over 50 roosters and about 30 large jack crevalle.

We had so many roosters breaking the surface and slashing bait, they were on both sides of the boat, in front of us, and behind us. To watch a 70 or 80 pound rooster chasing a 2 foot long needle fish on the surface is something you will never forget. Plus, we saw and cast to a free swimming snook and a couple of dorado which had come in on the beach to join the melee.

Cheva was on the bow of the panga going nuts. We were getting a rooster raised with every cast, and often two or three. When a large jack crevalle beat a huge rooster to the fly, with Bob hooking up, the next thing I saw was Cheva swinging the hookless popper to about 2 inches in front of my nose. He said "Bob is going to be on that jurel for 45 minutes,...I am going to get a rooster...put a hook on it!"

I complied.... and Cheva was hooked up immediately after making the cast. Cheva fought the rooster on the 30 pound spin gear like only a world class fisherman can. The second Jose had the large jack in his hand, Cheva handed me the rod and I handed it to Bob. Bob then had another 15 minutes to get it to the boat for the release.…Ed Kunze

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

Cabo San Lucas

Mostly striped marlin and fairly close to shore on the Pacific side, the fish have been scattered up and down the coast. On Saturday a private boat fought and landed a 650-pound blue marlin in about 600 feet of water just north of the Golden Gate Bank

Tuna were scarce this week but toward the end of the week there were a few schools found to the southwest of the San Jaime Bank along the 1,000-fathom line and the temperature break. Most of the fish were footballs to 30 pounds but there were a few fish that pushed the 60 to 80 pound mark.

The dorado have moved a little farther to the north every day on the Pacific side. The bite was not wide open but it was a fairly steady pick on fish that ranged between 8 and 25 pounds in size.

There were a few wahoo caught this week but there were more lost than landed.

Pangas are having good luck on the Cortez side for large sierra and there have been a few large roosterfish found on the Pacific side.

The following was a report from Mark Sheehan who recently fished on the Baja Raider: "I had a wonderful time fishing with Antonio and Gabi. We landed nine dorado and one 60 pound wahoo. I was able to hook three dorado on a nine-weight fly and landed two of them (teasing with a live bait without a hook, then casting to the fish). The rest of the fish were landed on conventional gear. We saw many marlin, but they were not hungry. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and will do it again in one year". …George and Mary Landrum

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

Some Large Tuna Remain

After several years of waiting for the opportunity, I finally hooked a dorado on the fly from shore. It wasn't a big fish. But I'll take it. I saw it chasing bait. At first I thought it was a roosterfish. But as soon as it ate the fly I could see it was all lit up in classic dorado fashion! Unfortunately, Colleen wasn't with me and I didn't have a camera. So I had to race down the beach some distance to get a photo. Hence, the dull colors on the fish. This one will be dinner tonight. Courtesy of the ‘mono lisa’ fly on 20lb. fluorocarbon…Lance Peterson.

Endless Season Update 11/08/2009REPORT #1188 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996

East Cape

The yellowfin, dorado and sailfish are all very close to shore. Lots of sailfish spread from the north to the south within three miles of the beach. Larger tuna to 100 pounds outside under the porpoise, but most anglers are opting for the smaller fish closer to shore, from the light house south. Fifteen to thirty five pound yellowfin are all within one mile of the beach. Dorado from five to twenty five pounds are mixed in with the yellowfin. Inshore fishing is very good, with very light fishing pressure. Big roosters, pompano, sierra (early), pargo and huge schools of jack crevalle are all biting aggressively.

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

Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico

Strong winds plagued offshore this week and continue to produce rough seas. The dorado, tuna and wahoo catches have been decent, with our clients, Jeff Dean and friends, catching limits of wahoo, tuna and dorado. In the bay, they limited out every day on pargo, grouper and corvina.

So far, the billfish action has been sparse with only an occasional blind strike. There’s still very little bait around.

The Success, on a multi-day trip, had sixty wahoo and limits of tuna and dorado for eight anglers…Bob Hoyt.

Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150

Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico

The clean water is only one or two miles off the beach, with the 84 degree deep blue water six to seven miles out. For the eight to ten boats fishing every day, it does not matter if they choose the blue water or inshore, they are experiencing some great fishing!

The boats are releasing between two and three sailfish a day each, and like last week, the counts would be higher if the dorado wouldn't beat the sails to the baits: Each boat is also getting four to five of the twenty pound class dorado a day.

Inshore is just as exciting, especially using light line or a fly rod, with a lot of sierra, roosters, and jack crevalle. Adolfo, on the panga, Dos Hermanos, said each day the boats are each getting between 12 to 15 of the smaller jacks (from two to five pounds), five to six large roosters (averaging about 35 to 40 pounds), and as many of the smaller sierra as they want for ceviche or evening dinner

The following is a quote sent to me on Wednesday by John Carroll of New York. He and his wife,

Erika, fished with Luis Maciel on the Gringo Loco.
“We had two great days---Monday and Tuesday. Monday we went out for billfish and caught four sails and two dorado. Two sails were 90 to 100 pounds and two were juvenile. The dorado were small in the 10 to 15 pound range.

Because of the very calm weather, Luis suggested we go rooster fishing yesterday. Ran a good ways south, 30 miles by my ‘guesstimate’, but the roosters were not there. Had one runoff on a live bait but lost it. Picked up one dorado at the mouth of the bay on the way out and caught another five or six on the way back; same size fish with one larger one in the 25 pound class. Going offshore again tomorrow for billfish…will let you know that report before we leave on Monday.

Thanks again for hooking me up with Luis and Jorge. We're having a blast with them.”
Clients fishing with Mike Buckley and Francisco on the Huntress had a great day on Wednesday. They got fifteen yellowfin tuna and two sailfish and they were back at the dock by noon.
Jose Pino, down at Puerto Vicente Guerrero, told me there are a lot of roosters on the beaches down there, and a lot of dorado just a couple of hundred yards off the beach. We will be going for them tomorrow with the fly rods…Ed Kunze

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


Cabo San Lucas

A black marlin was reported to have been caught on the Gordo Bank during the Western Outdoor News Tuna Tournament that ended up weighing over 650 pounds. That was the only large billfish this week. Most of the action was on striped marlin and a few sailfish. There were fish found scattered about all along the Pacific side with no strong concentrations anywhere.
The big news on the tuna front was the capture of a yellowfin during the first day of the W.O.N. Tournament that weighed 383 pounds! That fish was a real toad and was reported to have been caught while fishing with a live bollito on the surface at the Gordo Banks.

Dorado have slowed down a little overall, but a few boats are continuing to do extremely well when finding debris on the surface. One boat found a dead turtle and loaded up on decent size dorado averaging 20 pounds. For the most part the numbers are down - a good trip is five to ten fish and the average size is now down to 10 pounds. During the Tuna Tournament there were only two dorado weighed in over 30 pounds.

The wahoo bite was good for the boats that targeted them and for everyone else it was an incidental catch. I have one friend that managed to get 15 wahoo in three days, losing a lot more than that, with the largest one being 85 pounds. During the Tuna Tournament the largest to come to the scales was 61 pounds.

It appears that the size of the roosterfish shrinks week by week. The week before last they were averaging 5 to 10 pounds and this past week anglers were lucky to get one that weighed 5 pounds. Other inshore fish have yet to really arrive. There are a few sierras being caught and an occasional small yellowtail, but neither in any numbers. …George and Mary Landrum

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

Wind for Some

Then there was the Magdalena Island beach which produced a memorable day of mixed catches.

Endless Season Update 11/1/2009REPORT #1187 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996

East Cape


October is over and hopefully we have seen the last of the Chubascos for 2009. The seasonal north winds have begun and the trick now is to pick the right days to fish or take up wind surfing.

On the good days, billfish and tuna (both football and some verging on gorilla class) can be located under the porpoise. Though according to Mark Rayor the porpoise have been tough to find and usually only the first few boats that find them are successful.

Rick Maxa, “Let’s Talk Hookup” co-host, passed along a good tip: try the ranger lures that we sometimes use as hookless teasers for jacks and roosters. If you get in front of a school of porpoise and don’t get a bite, try one; it seems that tuna cannot resist the Roberts Rangers . This is the perfect solution for the fly guys when attempting to keep the tuna on the surface long enough to get the fly in front of them.

There are still some quality dorado for the taking…mostly schoolies with a few toads up to fifty pounds mixed in.

The persistent wind waves have chewed up the beaches and left dirty water. However, the water clears up quickly when the wind subsides. Gary Barnes Webb, manager at Rancho Leonero, caught some quality roosters recently along the beach on the non-windy days.

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

Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico

While the marlin show began early this yea,r the September and October parade of storms seem to have pushed them out again. Consensus is the lack of bait is the reason; earlier there were baitballs everywhere, but unfortunately they have disappeared.

Boats traveling down the ridge reported excellent tuna and dorado fishing all the way down to the 23’s, then nothing on down to Santa Maria.

Some of the Loreto trailer boats are reporting fair to great wahoo action on the Thetis. Closer to shore, ten miles outside Boca Soledad, limits of tuna and dorado were a slam dunk.

Our recent Estero trip produced a steady bite of pargo, snapper, grouper, a few large snook lost and some “what the hell was that”?

Then there was the Magdalena Island beach which produced a memorable day of mixed catches.

Effective immediately Mexican fishing licenses may be purchased in Lopez Mateos without any hassle. They are available near the launch ramp from a Fonmar representative.

Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150

Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico

The clean water is only one or two miles off the beach, with the 84 degree deep blue water six to seven miles out. For the eight to ten boats fishing every day, it does not matter if they choose the blue water or inshore; they are experiencing some great fishing.

The boats are releasing between two and three sailfish a day each, and like last week, the counts would be higher if the dorado wouldn't beat the sails to the baits: Each boat is also getting four to five of the twenty pound class dorado a day.

Inshore is just as exciting, especially using light line or a fly rod, with a lot of sierra, roosters, and jack crevalle. Adolfo, on the panga, Dos Hermanos, said the boats are each getting between 12 to 15 of the smaller jacks (from two to five pounds),five to six large roosters each day (averaging about 35 to 40 pounds), and as many of the smaller sierra as they want for ceviche or evening dinner..…Ed Kunze

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


Cabo San Lucas

The striped marlin bite, as well as blue and black marlin bite, slowed this week. It may have something to do with the full moon. As the water cooled, we expected the big girls to slow down but the striped marlin should be picking up. Maybe soon the big groups will start to show. The fish that were caught were found on the Pacific side fairly close to the beach by boats looking for dorado. A few boats did all right, releasing two or three fish per trip, but we have not yet seen the numbers of fish as we have over the past three years.

Yellowfin were scattered, some fish were found as close as two miles from the lighthouse and others were out 30+ miles to the west. Almost all the fish were found with porpoise; there were a few unassociated schools found but it was hard to keep on the fish without the mammals to show you where they were headed. Most of the fish caught were football to school size fish, from 8 to 40 pounds with an occasional 60 to 80 pound fish in the mix. The few boats that got to the schools first did all right with an occasional larger fish to 130 pounds. At the end of the week the bite slowed down and the fish were harder to find.

The dorado bite was wide open early on. Boats were catching all they could handle and were releasing anything under 10 pounds. Later in the week the water started to cool and the bite slowed down. With the moon getting larger the bite moved to the afternoon as well so it often seemed that there were no more dorado around. Even with the slow bite late in the week, most of the boats were able to catch near-limits of fish averaging 12 pounds.

The full moon brought the wahoo bite back and there were more fish found late in the week than earlier in the week. Most of the fish averaged 30 pounds and were found near the points by boats working for dorado.

With the great water conditions most of the pangas were trying their best to put clients on the dorado and tuna early in the week. At the end of the week the morning boats returned to the near shore ground and targeted roosterfish, sierra and snapper. Most of the roosterfish were on the small size with an average of 10 pounds but there were some 30 to 40 pound-class fish found in the Cabo bay near the RIU resort beach. The sierra were small at an average of four pounds and were found farther up the Cortez side of the Cape. The main species of snapper found this week were the smaller yellowtail snapper along with a few cubera and barred pargo…George and Mary Landrum

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