Cabo San Lucas fishing Report for Dec 2-8, 2002 CAPT. GEORGE LANDRUM “FLY HOOKER” SPORTFISHING [email protected] www.flyhooker.com CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT DECEMBER 2-8, 2002 WEATHER: It’s starting to get a bit cooler here in Cabo so we know that its winter time! Our morning lows have been in the 60-63 degree range while our daytime highs have been in the mid 80’s. Early in the week we had mostly cloudy skies as we had a front move over us and on Tuesday we got some rain in the morning and the afternoon. After the rain last week you should see the desert out there, green as can be and the flowers just shooting out! Right now we have clear skies and light winds from the NNW for the mornings at around 5-7mph with it picking up to around 12-15mph in the late afternoon. (Trade Winds) WATER: Just as our air temperatures have cooled a bit, so has the water temperature. Last week we were looking at surface temps in the 80-81 degree range out front and now we have them in the 78 degree range. Looking at the area in the larger sense we are not seeing the 80-81 degree water unless you go up past Golden Gate Banks or at least 35 miles to the SE. Within a 15 mile radius of Cabo it is an even 78 degrees. 25 miles to the southwest we have a finger of cold water moving in from the Pacific that is showing temps of 75 degrees with a well defined edge. There have been no swells to speak of and the surface conditions have been great. Most mornings there has been just a light wind riffle and in the afternoons just a light chop on fairly flat seas. Good blue water everywhere you go! (Oceans Apart) BAIT: There were some Mackerel early in the week and now it is mostly Caballito. The normal price of $2 per bait. I have not asked for nor have I heard if there are any Sardinas available. (Holding Back The Years) FISHING: BILLFISH: Not too surprisingly with the lowering surface temperatures the number of Blue Marlin being found has dropped considerably. There were a few at the beginning of the week and almost none at all over the weekend. The main Billfish for the week was Striped Marlin, a situation likely to continue now until next summer. Just because they are the most numerous though does not mean that they are out there in great numbers. Most boats have been able to find at least one or two a day and a few lucky ones have been able to catch up to three a day, judging by the flags I have seen flying on boats coming in. Most of the fish were being found on the Pacific side and were pretty evenly mixed with about half coming from the area to the south of the Jaime Banks and the other half coming out of the area between the lighthouse and Los Arcos, out between three and ten miles. The average size is down a bit with most of them in the 100-120 pound range and the bite has been mostly on live bait. Boats have been finding them just as you usually look for Dorado, spotting Frigate Birds working then racing over to toss a live bait under them. (Blue Universe) YELLOWFIN TUNA: Very few Yellowfin were caught this week although on Thursday if you had been out at the lighthouse on the Pacific side you would have thought that the bite was wide open! There was a giant group of Porpoise working the area and clouds of Frigates working them. The action attracted about 50 boats that were tossing live bait right and left, dropping bait down hopeing to get bit and pulling every lure known to man in the hope of a Tuna bite. Any time the Frigates would re-form and start feeding again there would be a race with around a dozen of the closet boats running full throttle into the middle of the mess, tossing out bait as the slid to a stop. I only heard of one boat getting a Tuna out of it! The same day I was up at the Golden Gate Banks earlier and there were Tuna in the 100-200 pound class feeding on very small baits, Manuel said they were Bullito (sp?). We worked them for a while until other boats showed up and the fish went down. The few other fish that were found this week were footballs, unassociated with any Porpoise. They were caught on feathers pulled for Dorado. (Dream Catcher) DORADO: It seemed the key to getting numbers of Dorado this week was to find some floating debris. If you did, and there were not too many boats working it at the time, you stood a good chance of picking up a limit. Most of the fish caught under debris were caught on live bait or chunks. If you wee not one of the first few boats there, and if you were not getting bit on fly-lined baits, it sometimes helped to rig them with a 2-4 ounce lead about 5 feet away and let them down around 60 feet. There were a few scattered fish found within 3 miles of the shore and they were most often spotted under working Frigate birds. Best lures were 6” feathers in bright colors with some of the larger Dorado going for 12 inch plastics in rainbow hues. (Feelin’ Alright) WAHOO: There were some Wahoo caught this week and I heard of a few in the 80-90 pound class. Most of the fish I heard of were found off the coast on the Pacific side while boats were working for Dorado and Striped Marlin. There were a couple caught at the Jaime Banks that were over 60 pounds but most of the fish were in the 30-40 pound range. Best lures were Braid Marauders in purple/black and chromed jet heads of at least 6 ounces with dark skirts. (Midnight Swim) INSHORE: While not seeing them myself, I heard reports of a halfway decent bite on Roosterfish on the Cortez side of the Cape, with one boat getting a fish in the 50 pound class and getting a lot in the 15-20 pound size. There are Sierra showing up as well and they are 3-5 pounds average. The Roosterfish were hitting live Mullet and the Sierras were biting on Clark spoons and on small Rapalas. I have also heard reports of a few Yellowtail being found as well. Most of the Pangas have been focusing on Dorado since there have been a few nice sized fish within their reach. (Dipsea Trail) NOTES: While the weather and the water were very nice this past week, the fishing has been just average. A fair selection to be found, but nothing in any great quantities. It may have something to do with the new moon on Wednesday, but things should start to pick up real soon. The Whales are starting to show up in force and have been sighted on every trip this week. This weeks report was written to the music of one of my favorite guitarists (I have a lot of them!) Craig Chaquico on his 1997 Higher Octave Music Inc. release “Once in a Blue Universe”. On this album he is joined with artists such as Richard Elliot, John Klemmer, Dave Koz, Douglas Spotted Eagle, 3rd Force and Peter White. As you can tell, this is a great Jazz and Rock mix! Fly Hooker Daily Fishing Reports for Dec 2-8, 2002 “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR DECEMBER 2, 2002 Returning client Roy Tull is here with his friend David for a few days and today is their fishing day. And that is what it was, a fishing day, not a catching day. Roy said it was a good day to be on the water and that the fish got lucky. Juan and Manuel again worked the Pacific side of the Cape out to a distance of about 10 miles, and up the coast about 15 miles but found no fish that were willing to bite. In a few days Roy and David will be fishing for one day on the East Cape. I sure hope you guys have better luck up there! Let me know when you return, ok? Tight Lines! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 3 DECEMBER, 2002 Our friend Harry Hudson is here with his friend Nolan for four days of fishing with us. Nolan has never caught a Marlin and that is to be the target for all the days on the water. They would like to be able to catch a Dorado each day so they have fresh fish for dinner, other than that, the target is to be Marlin! Juan and Manuel took the boat 10 miles out from the lighthouse on the Pacific side and worked their way up the coast. It was raining a bit in the morning but by about 9am it cleared off and at 9:30 they got a Dorado in the boat, dinner in the box! Around a half hour later Manuel spotted a Marlin on the surface and ran the boat over to him to toss a bait. As he slowed the boat down the lures sunk and instead of eating the bait he ate the lure on the bridge rod! Nolan made pretty short work of him, getting him to the boat in about 15 minutes, then the continued the search, but got nothing else for the day. “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 4 DECEMBER, 2002 Fishing started about 12 miles straight out today and then Juan and Manuel worked the boat up the coast the same distance as yesterday. Today it was Harry’s turn to catch fish and he got to reel in dinner, but that was all. Juan said that they had one Marlin strike that did not hook up. I sure hope things get better tomorrow! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 5 DECEMBER, 2002 Juan called me at 5:30 this morning to let me know he was sick (something he ate) and would not be coming to work so it was me and Manuel on the boat today. Harry and Nolan invited our friend Chewy to go along. He is 19 and has never been on a boat before but is always asking about the clients fishing trips. Manuel let me know that the bite had been good off of Los Arcos yesterday so that is where we started for. We got an early start and were one of the first boats to the area. I marked no bait on the depth sounder and saw only a few Porpoise on the surface and no birds at all. We actually put the lines in the water shortly before Los Arcos just in case the fish had moved and I continued past Los Arcos in case they may have headed that way. With no signs of life there and the Golden Gate Banks being only 7 miles away, I decided to go and check that area out. Once we got to the Banks, there was only one other boat there, I spotted a couple of Frigate Birds working and big splashes underneath them. Big Yellowfin Tuna, in the 150-200 pound class were feeding on small bait. We tried for an hour to get them to eat something, anything, but had no luck with lures or live bait. Eventually a few more boats arrived and we tried deep dropping live bait for about a half hour with no results. I headed back to the Los Arcos area and when we got there I realized that is where I should have stayed as it must have been a tide associated bite. One boat was fighting a Marlin and just before we got to him we had a strike on the bridge rod. I did not see the fish, only the splash but Manuel said it was a big Dorado. About five boats were working a very small area and suddenly two Frigate Birds swooped down and there were a pair of Striped Marlin under them! They were only about 50 yards in front of us and by the time Manuel got a bait hooked up to toss they were just off the bow and went down. Norman said that if he had a very long handled tag stick he could have free-tagged him! No luck for us there and as we continued towards the Marina we saw a monster concentration of boats off of the lighthouse. Lots of Frigates working and boats zooming here and there showed that they were trying to get some Tuna in amongst the Porpoise but we saw no one hooking up. There were at least 50 boats in there! We made it back to the Marina with no flags but at least Manuel and Juan have a target for tomorrow! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR DECEMBER 6, 2002 Juan was feeling better today so the worked the boat as crew. Manuel had decided to spend the day working the area off of Los Arcos and Harry and Nolan were all for it. They spent all day and saw lots of bait and lots of Porpoise, but never got a strike. Harry said that he and Nolan thought about going somewhere else but that every time they started to say something the bait boiled to the surface and the area looked so fishy they changed their minds! Well, it was not a very productive four days of fishing for the guys, but Nolan did get his first Marlin! Both Harry and Nolan are fishermen and they acknowledged that sometimes you strike out, hopefully next time their luck will be better. Until then, Tight Lines! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR DECEMBER 7, 2002 For today and the next two days we have our good friend David Reese fishing aboard the “Fly Hooker” and he is here on a “Guy’s” vacation with his friends Mike Shane and James Fu. We promised David’s wife Peggy that we would try and keep the guy’s out of trouble! Today Juan and Manuel tried once again to fish the area off of Los Arcos, on the Pacific side. There is just so much bait there and so much going on that it is hard to keep away. You just KNOW that with all that bait there has to be some predators around the area! Well, at about 9am to 10am they did have two Marlin hook-ups, but they both came unbuttoned. The first fish they thought they were going to have a good chance at but no...it threw the hook after a few minutes. The other fish was just a strike and quick pull before it came off. They have decided that no matter how good it looks there they are going to try somewhere else tomorrow! We will keep our fingers crossed for them. “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR DECEMBER 8, 2002 The second day of fishing for David, Mike and James was a lot better than yesterday’s trip! No Marlin strikes today, but that may be because they went elsewhere in the morning. Today was Manuels day off and we had Chino working the deck. Juan pointed the bow of the boat to the south as they left San Lucas Bay and ran out about 9 miles than began to troll. At a distance of 16 miles they saw a boat stopped and went over to check him out. The boat had found a piece of wood floating in the water and was hooking up around it, getting some nice Dorado. It turned out to be a good thing that David had purchased 20 baits instead of the usual 10 pieces! The live bait turned the Dorado on and Mike and James had a blast! Dave was the beer server and coach most of the time, but when they had six fish hooked at one time he had to step in and assist. About four or five fish were lost due to tangled lines that broke but they ended up with 10 Dorado, a limit for five people (including Chino and Juan). It was not until they were down to two live baits that Dave told them to start using chunks, otherwise they were going to run out. With a limit of Dorado in the box they started to look for Marlin or Wahoo or Tuna, but there was no other action. The Dorado, weighing between 15 and 30 pounds, filleted out to 83 pounds of meat and Dave decided to have it vacume packed and frozen to take home. Tomorrow anything goes, and hopefuly they will come across a Marlin willing to eat! Until next week, Tight Lines! George, Mary, Juan, and Manuel , the “Fly Hooker” crew!