FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
April 2-8, 2007
WEATHER: Things can sure change quickly down here and this week was a perfect example of it. At the start of the week we were feeling as if summer had already arrived but by Wednesday evening the wind started to blow and the temperatures dropped. We have had nighttime lows in the low 60's since then and daytime highs in the low to mid 80's. The wind hasn't really stopped except for early in the morning around first light, and then it picks up again. It has been blowing from the west at a fairly steady 15-20 mph with higher gusts.
WATER: We still had swells on the Pacific side large enough to bring surfers to our area, and now with the wind on top of that the Pacific side of the Cape looks like a sheep farm, or maybe that should be a sheep feedlot, everywhere you look it is white. With the wind from the west there is not really any way to get in calm water, the only really calm stuff is close to shore on the Cortez side of the Cape. The water on the Pacific side cooled off to around 68-69 degrees and there is an area just in front of the Cape that extends out to the 95 spot that has water as cold as 62-63 degrees. The warm water is up around Punta Gorda and out to the east past the Cabrilla Seamount, but with the wind like it is, it's a tough go and return.
BAIT: There was a mix of Mackerel and Caballito this week at the usual $2 each. I didn't hear of any Sardinas available.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: The San Jaime and Golden Gate banks were still holding great amounts of Striped Marlin at the beginning of the week and the bite continued, even through the heavy winds. Almost all the boats that went early in the week were able to get hooked up to at least one or two and most boats did a bit better than that. The best result I heard of was a boat with 18 releases on the Golden Gate. Reportedly, the best results were on dead bait back in the shotgun position and drop-backs on fish raised to the lures. Many boats started drifting bait early in the week but later on the water was too bouncy and rough to fish in the trough so everyone switched to trolled lures or slow trolled live bait. I am not sure what this wind is going to do with the fish, but if it follows last years pattern it should push the fish to the Cortez side and we should start to have decent action closer to home, and hopefully in calmer waters. We sighted a few tailing Marlin at the end of the week less than a mile from shore off of the Cabo Real area so more may be showing soon. I heard of a Blue Marlin from up around the Punta Gorda area and there are Striped Marlin there as well, just not in the numbers we were finding on the Pacific banks.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: The only Tuna I heard about or saw this week came from the San Jaime Banks. One of the fleet boats brought in a nice #80 fish on Saturday that they hooked on live bait. They said they had several more bites but the fish were lost due to the rough conditions.
DORADO: Repeat: No changes from last week as the lucky boats were catching one fish a day but they were good size, in the 30-40 pound class. There was no concentration of fish and they were scattered.
WAHOO: Repeat: I did not hear of any Wahoo this week.
INSHORE: Repeat: Even the inshore fishing was spotty this week. There were some Sierra, a few Yellowtail and a scattering of bottom fish, but no great catches to be had.
NOTES: Be careful what you hope for is a lesson I learned this week! I was hoping that the fishing would improve and it did, but the downside was the increase in the wind and the change in its direction. If the wind dies down things should be good once again. This weeks report was written to the music of the Jeff Healy band from the soundtrack of the movie "Roadhouse". Until next week, tight lines!