REPORT #1217 "Below the Border" Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996
East Cape
Mike Hergert provided this photo of a pompano he caught this week during his stay at Rancho Leonero. His panguero, Santos, said it was the largest one he has ever seen and guessed that it weighed between 18 and 20 pounds. Mike also reported that he caught two marlin, six tuna to 50 pounds (enough to fill his ice chest), six dorado from a kayak, two large roosters---one weighing 65 pounds and one weighing 55 pounds---and numerous ladyfish, sierra, etc. on a fly rod from the beach.
While Mike had an excellent week others were not so successful. There were several days of wind to contend with, but it seemed to help the marlin bite.
Tuna action is being found mixed in with the porpoise quite a ways offshore. If you are not one of the first boats to find them, however, it's too late. Apparently the best dorado action is for smaller fish around the moored boats in front of the hotels. Perfect for the kayakers looking for action in the evening.
Inshore action is still where it's happening. Hoards of small roosters with enough 'bubba' class to keep it interesting. The pompano action is near the lighthouse along with some jacks.
Current East Cape Weather http://tiny.cc/EastCapeWeather303
Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico
It has been windy lately so few are venturing outside. Bay fishing remains good and in fact has been picking up with corvina and halibut starting to show in numbers. Local fishermen on Isla Magdalena have been spotting marlin and swordfish. Bob Hoyt
Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150
Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico
The 80° blue water is just a couple of miles off the beach, and the action has been fairly steady for striped marlin, blue marlin, and a few sailfish. However, this is the time of year to expect these kind of results. It is hard to imagine, but for the 30 calendar days starting about May 12, there can be no better blue marlin fishing anywhere in the world than what we have here on this coast.
A few years back I made a study about our marlin fishing in May. The blue marlin outnumbered the striped marlin by about ten to one, plus there were also a few blacks caught. The sport fishing fleet averaged 7.5 strikes a day, with almost four fish a day brought to leader. Historically during this time period, we average a blue marlin per boat for every three days on the water.
Plus, this was done by boats that were basically geared for sailfish, and found themselves sadly under-equipped when the marlin hit. Some boats, like the See-Ya from Cabo San Lucas, spent the fuel money to get here just to sample this action. They specifically targeted marlin and had a great month. Plus, there was an insignificant difference in fish caught between the pangas and the cruisers, proving the fish don’t care how fancy the boat is.
For this last week, the super panga, Huntress, with Captain Francisco, only caught one sail at the 16-mile mark, in what owner, Mike Bulkley, described as “beautiful blue water”, but they had several marlin strikes also. The Huntress was handicapped by a couple of earthquakes the day before, which really hurts the fishing. Mike also told me there was a lot of the bait-stealing bufeos (boo-fay-ohs) in the area. Almost identical to, but much larger than a porpoise, they are false killer whales, near the top of the food chain, and they can shut off a bite also.
Santiago, on the super panga Gitana, says “fishing is good right now”. He fished three days with John Fuller of Chicago, and friends Ben and Sam, releasing seven sailfish, and catching a 180-pound blue marlin. They also had five more sailfish and two striped marlin strikes, but missed them.
Inshore action was tough this last week, as we had huge waves hit the coast from a storm several thousand miles away. The waves were actually washing up into the beachside restaurants, whose tables are on the sand. But, from tracking the waves on the internet, it sure brought in the surfers from all over the world..…Ed Kunze
Current Zihuatanejo Weather http://tiny.cc/zihuatanejo582
Cabo San Lucas
There are many more striped marlin being seen, but they were not swimming around with their mouths open. It took time, patience and working the right fish to get hooked up as it appeared most of the fish were still full on squid. Most boats were able to get one to bite and a few boats had better luck and were able to hook three or four fish, but the average was more like one for every two boats hooking up and fighting to each release. The fish are fairly close to the beach, just outside the arch and up the coast on the Cortez side. There were reports of some decent-size black marlin in the area as well.
We had a 'good to decent' bite on football-to-school-size yellowfin tuna close to home. The fish were just outside of the Gray Rock area within five miles of the beach. This placed them in calm water close to home, so they got hammered hard by almost every boat out there. They are gone now but while they were here, guys had great fun on fish ranging in size from 10 to 45 pounds. These fish were associated with a pod of porpoise so they were fairly easy to find most days. Best luck was had by boats able to get sardina up in San Jose, but that meant an early go, as it is a 45 minute run up there and the same back. In order to have the best luck, you needed to be on the fish early! There was scattered action in other areas, but the best alternative was the area to the south and west of the San Jaime banks where the water blued up nicely. The only problem there was that it was easy to get fish close to home and the water was rough out at the Jaime.
Dorado are not here in full force yet, but there are still some decent fish turning up on the catch as boats fishing the near-shore waters on the Sea of Cortez side of the Cape are having decent luck with fish to 20 pounds while trolling live bait. Several pangas reported catching dorado to 30 pounds while slow trolling live mullet for roosterfish just off the beach where you can see the bottom. Other fish were caught on the Cortez side, but the focus was on the Gordo Banks and the Red Hill area. Not a lot of fish were there, but some of the boats were able to get action.
There were still some decent wahoo to be caught; but not in the numbers or the sizes we were seeing recently. The fish that were caught were found in the usual haunts, on top of structure and off of the steeper drops.
Roosterfish remained the best bet inshore with decent action on sierra as well if you worked the beach on the Pacific side of the Cape. All the mullet that have arrived have really improved the inshore action for all species. Amberjack continued to be one of the favorites and limits were easy to come by for most anglers. George and Mary Landrum
Current Cabo Weather http://tiny.cc/cabo191
Posts
