CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT
Capt. George Landrum
Fly Hooker Sportfishing
www.flyhooker.com
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
July 12-18, 2010
Weather: Our highs this week were in the high 90's, and during the tail end of the week we hit 99 degrees! Hot and humid! At least by Sunday things had cooled down and the humidity had dropped. Our nighttime lows were in the mid 70's most of the time, there were only two nights where we needed the air conditioning on, and they were in the middle of the week. We also had partly cloudy to mostly cloudy skies for about half the time due to the ragged remains of storms to the south of us, and over the mainland.
Water: The water continued to warm up this week with the Sea of Cortez maintaining a fairly constant temperature in our area of 80-82 degrees. This warm, over 80 degree water has finally wrapped around the Cape and we are now seeing it on the San Jaime and the Golden Gate Banks. Outside to the west of the banks, as well as to the north, we are seeing water in the 70-73 degree range. The port captain closed the port to vessel traffic, actually turning away a cruise ship in Friday, due to large swells kicked up by a tropical depression that passed to the southwest of us, but things were back to normal on Saturday.
Bait: Caballito and Mullet were available at $3 per bait.
FISHING
Billfish: The warm water has brought in some Blue Marlin finally, there were several released this week as well as a few that were killed. Most of them were in the 200 pound class, but there were a couple reported to be over 300 pounds, and one of about 500 pounds. The Striped Marlin bite improved as well with the fish finally starting to bite on a regular basis. There were no big numbers posted by anyone, but almost everyone was releasing one a day and having shots at a few others during their trips. A few Sailfish were caught as well, and the sizes were decent with most of them in the 90-100 pound range, though there were a few smaller ones around 60 pounds, but still, these were nice fish. A couple of Blacks were reported as well from boats that were working near to shore for Dorado, but I only heard of two, thought I am sure there were more.
Yellowfin Tuna: Even though we were seeing big Tuna last week, and boats were going to the Gorda Banks to target them, boats from Cabo did not have great results. With these large fish you really needed to be on the spot at first gray light, but the boats fishing from San Jose did get a few as they only had a 20 minute run instead of two hours. In our area there were plenty of fish in the 10-20 pound class with a few going to 30 pounds. These fish were found with the porpoise and while it did take some time to find them, once you did the action was good, at least for the first few boats. A good catch was 8 fish, most boats caught three or four, a few never found them or had other targets in mind. Due south at the 1,000 fathom line or just to the west, below the San Jaime Banks were the areas the boats went to find them, and there were some found on the Cortez side out past the 1150 as well.
Dorado: We saw more Dorado this week than last week, and they were a little larger on average as well, both good signs, but what we expected to happen as the water warmed up. The fish were not concentrated in one area either, they were scattered out, one or two here and there. The key for Dorado was finding a Frigate Bird that was staying in one area and occasionally swooping down to the water, if you found that happening you were pretty sure of hooking up to a nice fish. The larger fish were in the 25-30 pound range while the average was 15-20 pounds. As is normal with Dorado, dropping back a live bait after hooking up one usually brought about a second hook-up. Pangas were doing fairly well on fish averaging 12 pounds by slow trolling live bait on the Pacific side within 1 mile of the beach.
Wahoo: The warm water also brought about a resurgence in Wahoo bites. Quite a few fish were caught this week, at least in respect to what is normally hooked up, and they were averaging 35 pounds with a few larger ones to 60 pounds. Offshore blind strikes while fishing for Tuna happened quite a bit, but the favorite areas were near shore, near drop-offs, and wherever the Frigate birds were working.
Inshore: Red Snapper continued to be the fish of the week for inshore fishermen as they worked the rocks on the Pacific side of the Cape for fish averaging 7 pounds. Live bait tossed into the foam around the rocks was the best method for these fish. There were also quite a few nice Roosterfish and larger Jack Crevalle found cruising just outside the breakers and once again live bait was the key to catching them.
Notes: The large storm swells on Friday resulted in many of the beach bars having to deal with the water intruding into the seating area, and there were a few people who took advantage of the swells to get some good surfing in at the surf spots. The water warming up has improved our fishing and we can look forward to the good fishing continuing for the near future! Keeping our fingers crossed that the storms stay away, until next week, tight lines!