Tuna Roll

Endless Season Update Wednesday, September 17, 2011

REPORT #1263 "Below the Border"
Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996

East Cape

Tuna, atún, tuńczyk. . .in any language these fish are practically chewing the paint off the bottom of the boats. Every report from East Cape is filled with sweaty ,casually-clothed anglers wearing big smiles commensurate with the size of the tuna.

Traditionally,  September is  a slow month because of the propensity of Chubasos to show up unexpectedly.  This year, throughout the summer every month  has looked like September at all the hotels as far as the number of guests and anglers is concerned.

Clearly the tuna are impervious to the bad economy and in terms of quantity and quality, tuna fishing is as good as it gets right now. Meanwhile dorado are showing up more in the catches each day with the largest in the forty-pound class. And though not drawing as much attention, the billfish action for blues, sails and stripers has been picking up as well.

Last but not least, the roosterfish bite has gone on almost all summer.

Regardless of your tackle choice, conventional, spinning or fly, there are enough challenges and personal bests to satisfy both newcomers and seasoned veterans.

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

Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico

Fishing continues to improve after a bit of unsettled conditions. Large dorado and the early appearance of marlin have the few  anglers who are fishing excited. Fish are in 85° water just a few miles outside Boca Soledad. My son released two and had more follows in the area.

Out at the Thetis, wahoo have been sporadically good recently. . .just not in the concentrations that were here last year. …Bob Hoyt

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

Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico

See report on BajaBytes report 

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

Cabo San Lucas

There are plenty of striped marlin being seen but not all of them are hungry.  Just getting one released has been a reason for celebration for most anglers.  Some blacks are beginning to show up off the Gordo Banks and the Punta Gordo area and there have been blue marlin attacking lures both south of Cabo and around the warm water plume on the Pacific side.  Most of these larger fish have been in the 200- to 300-pound class. Lures have been best to use on the blue marlin and the black marlin really like slow-trolled live skipjack.

Strangely enough, yellowfin tuna have remained our top reported fish.  I mean that because we have been seeing purse seiners setting on schools out here, and we are still catching nice tuna, in spite of them! There have been some very nice-sized fish reported from the area of the Finger Banks, but that is a long haul for the fleet guys on a fingers-crossed trip when there is good fishing closer to home.  Boats fishing the Pacific side have been catching fish ranging from 10 to 100 pounds with most of them in the 20- to 30-pound class while trolling cedar plugs and feathers around porpoise and dolphin.  The larger fish have been hooked on slow-trolled live bait dropped-back after hooking up to a trolled fish, but the very largest fish have been taken while fishing under a kite.  We had clients this week who caught five yellowfin between 30 and 60 pounds and several smaller ones, the larger fish all coming from using the kite.  Other boats working a bit farther out to the south reported larger fish over 100 pounds coming from under a kite.

Plenty of dorado to be caught, you just had to be fishing the right areas to get them.  Almost all the big numbers were found within two miles of the beach on the Pacific side up past the Arcos area.  Big numbers do not mean big fish though as most of these fish were in the 10-pound class along with a few much smaller ones.  The larger fish were found scattered farther offshore. Boats that did well on the larger fish were looking for feeding frigate birds and running to them, tossing out live bait and slow trolling the area.  Also, almost anything you found floating this week was likely to have fish under it.  A few boats were able to get into small groups averaging 25 pounds and catching three or four for the fish box.

Some roosterfish as well as a scattering of snapper and grouper have kept most inshore anglers a little busy, but with the water conditions the way they are most of the pangas are going offshore looking for the larger dorado and some of those great yellowfin tuna…George and Mary Landrum

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