East Cape Gets Mooned!

Captain Chuy on the Jen Wren is picking up where he left off with the grande yellowfin tuna. Yes, that was a full moon that shined over East Cape all week! photo Mark Rayor, Vista Sea Sports.
Endless Season Update June 27, 2010
REPORT #1220 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996
East Cape

I gotta' say it…under the bright light of a full moon, the East Cape went bananas. Throughout the week IM messages of great catches kept flashing on my computer screen.

Not only were there huge tuna to 146 pounds, there were also a few blues and definitely a stronger striped marlin bite all week. Most of the tuna were under the breezing porpoise schools and if the right one was found, there were some serious bites to be had.

Inshore and beach remained great serving up shots at big…oh what the heck…huge roosters and jacks with more broken off more than were caught. Hot days and hot fishing had everyone standing in lines at the bar to get something cold and wet. Can't wait to see if it holds up over the 4th.

Mark Rayor Keep It Reel Fish and Chips Tuna Tournament reported: Twenty boats. I skippered the Cabo, and Chuy the Innovator.

7AM: Shot gun start and all the boats made their way to the squid hole to make bait. I stayed there longer than most of the boats to load up on bait. Off we headed to the outside of Pescadero. We had limits the day before off of the light house but there were no big fish. Earlier in the week several larger fish were landed to the north. Out about nine miles, I picked up my gyros to start looking around.

The first thing I see is the Innovator off to my starboard. We ran a few more minutes and were lucky enough to run right into a huge school of spotted porpoise. Now we are about 12 miles out. I throttled back and we started chumming chunks of calamari. The tuna came for it instantly. I grabbed the radio and called Chuy. It only took him a few minutes to arrive on the spot. We already had three 30 pounders in the boat when the anglers on Chuy's boat had a triple hook up on calamari. They gaffed the 1st fish (about 20 pounds) when one of the other guys said, "I'm getting spooled". Chuy was alarmed when he looked down at an almost empty Accurate Boss B2-30. He immediately swung the boat around and went after the fish. In a few moments they had it under control and in 25 minutes brought it to gaff.

Knowing it was probably a contender they headed to the scale. At 9:30 AM they were at the dock where the tuna officially weighed in at 143 pounds. That was enough to hold up and take first place.
Current East Cape Weather http://tiny.cc/EastCapeWeather303

Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico

Last week's sketchy rumor of a couple of blues being caught turned out to be two confirmed swordfish that were caught by a yacht above Magdalena Bay on the ridge on their trip down to Cabo.

Meanwhile the local shark fishermen swear they are seeing dorado and billfish every day they venture outside. If the weather would settle down a tad it might be worth doing a little scouting.

Until that happens the yellowtail and white seabass are going off.

Inside it is pretty steady for the corvina and of course the cabrilla.. Bob Hoyt

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

Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico

With the blue water at only about 6 miles and a short ride off the beach, we are really getting some very warm surface temperatures. Morning readings are 84 to 85° with afternoon readings as high as 86 to 88°.

The blue water action has also slowed down some, but not a lot. Part of this is because I only counted five boats yesterday morning leaving the municipal pier in Zihuatanejo Bay with clients, and three of the boats were fishing inshore. There are just not many people here.

Inshore roosterfish and jack crevalle fishing is still excellent. Early in the week, Baja On The Fly Guide, Lance Peterson, guided fly fishing clients Tom Lorish and Kurt Ransohoff of California for four days. They were with Cheva on the panga Dos Hermanos II. Lance told me they raised more roosters than they could count while fishing down south between Valentine and the antennas. Tom did get a nice one weighing almost 30 pounds, with Kurt leadering three large jacks to 20 pounds. The next couple of days saw a few more jacks and a couple of roosters caught, with many more missed opportunities.

One of the problems they encountered, which hurt their chances for the spectacular results of the first day, was a couple of pods of bufeos (pronounced boo-fay-ohs) moved in on the same beaches they were fishing. A bufeo looks like a porpoise, but is twice as long. They are actually false killer whales, and a predator to roosterfish and jacks.

Fishing with Adolfo on the Dos Hermanos, I guided Rosario and Cecile Tortoice of Houston. We went north to the Buena Vista Beach area and ended up with 5 nice roosters to about 40 pounds.....…Ed Kunze

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


Cabo San Lucas

Striped marlin are being found out at the 1,000 fathom line but seemed lethargic and not very hungry. Up toward Punta Gordo where the water is much warmer there were a few blue marlin. Most boats were having about 20% success on the fish using bait, hooking one out of five. The blue marlin were feeding on tuna.

The good news of the week was that we finally had yellowfin show up. It was a long run up into the Sea of Cortez for the 50 to 100 pound class fish just to the north of the Gordo Banks. Only some of the boats gave it a shot, but for many of those that did, it was worth the run. Scattered pods of porpoise were holding fish and it was a matter of finding the right pod. There were smaller fish being found closer to home; it seemed that the farther you went the larger the fish became.

No concentrations of dorado have been reported recently but there were some nice fish found up in the same area as the tuna. The warm water was the key, as was finding anything floating, usually there was at least one fish in the area. Slow trolling a live bait in front of the porpoise pods looking for tuna resulted in several dorado instead, with the largest I heard of going just over 30 pounds.

Inshore fishing has been a bit off with the larger swells that made it uncomfortable. Those that managed to fish did well on the Pacific side with snapper to 20 pounds, some sierra, some amberjack and a lot of action from jack crevalle. The Cortez side of the Cape had fish inshore as well with roosterfish making a good showing in the area just to the west of the Westin Resort… George and Mary Landrum

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