Cabo San Lucas fishing Reprot for Dec 30 to Jan 5, 2003 Capt George Landrum Fly Hooker Sportfishing [email protected] www.flyhooker.com CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT FOR DECEMBER 30-JANUARY 5, 2003 WEATHER: A wonderful week as far as the weather went, the new year came in at 60 degrees on the nose. Our evening lows have been right in that range and our daytime highs have been in the mid 80’s. Party cloudy skies at the start of the week cleared by weeks end to give us bright sunny skies. Along with that came a lack of wind and it was wonderful! No rain for the week as is normal. (I’ve Got A Feeling) WATER: The warm 74-76 degree water has retreated even further away and the temperatures close to home were in the 72-73 range. A few spots were a degree higher than the surrounding water but there were no defined breaks. Surface conditions were great all week with smooth water and no wind chop early in the morning and only a light wind chop later in the day. Both sides of the cape had the same conditions almost every day. (Some Crazy Women) BAIT: The bait of the week was again the Mackerel. You could buy them for $2 each and once in a while there were some Caballito mixed in at the same price. Many of the boats made their own bait at the fishing grounds since the favorite target this week was Golden Gate Banks and it was holding lots of Mackerel. The only problem with that was coming across fish before you got there! (Guns & Gold) FISHING: BILLFISH: We finally had a good week with the Striped Marlin. A few were caught scattered around the Cape but the concentration was found at Golden Gate Banks. The fish were thick enough that some of the boats that arrived early caught and released 5 or 6 fish in a trip. Most boats were good for two fish and very few found no Marlin at all. The place looked like a parking lot at times with upwards of 85 boats on top of the bank, all dropping down live Mackerel. Once the bait reached 150 feet it was time to wait and if you were in the right spot it didn’t take long. Many of the fish were small, in the 80 pound range but the average size was near 120 pounds. Later on in the week the fish started to appear closer to home and the long run was not needed. These fish were tailers and were as close as two miles out. The action on these fish did not really start until this weekend. (Bring It On Home To Me) YELLOWFIN TUNA: This week I saw a few fish in the 150-200 pound range and they were caught at the Golden Gate Banks by boats dropping live bait down below the Marlin, often fishing the baits as deep at 350 feet. There were scattered school Tuna and there were a couple of good schools to the south of the Cape, varying in distance from 15 to 30 miles out. These fish bit on cedar plugs and feathers. The average catch was two to six fish and the average size was 30 pounds. (EEEE!! Blues) DORADO: This was a very good week for Dorado as almost every boat that went out caught lots of fish. A few boats did exceptionally well when being the first boat at floating debris but most of the fish were caught by dropping down live bait at both the San Jaime and the Golden Gate Banks. Checking out any Frigates working was also a good way to find scattered small groups of fish. (Shake-Dance Mix...pre-release) WAHOO: There were Wahoo caught at both the Golden Gate and the San Jaime Banks by boats that were dropping live bait. If the anglers were using mono leader there was most often a cut off fish. When that happened a few anglers changed to yo-yoing iron at about 150 feet using a short wire leader and hooked up some Wahoo in the 30-40 pound class. (Barnum & Bailey...pre-release) INSHORE: Still plenty of Sierra around but it is an early morning bite and the fish moved a little further up both coasts. Not a lot else happening inshore this week. (The Sparrow...pre-release) NOTES: With the Striped Marlin packed up at the Golden Gate this has been a boom week. Hopefully these fish will move in even closer as the month progresses. They are already showing up closer to Cabo and when they start to stack up on the lighthouse ledge, look out! There are plenty of Whales showing up and they are really putting on good shows with all the breaching and tail slapping! All around, this has been an excellent week, the only disappointment has been the lack of anglers taking advantage of the action. This weeks music selection is “The Brian Flynn Band” with their self released “Special Cabo Edition” CD. Brian is a great guy and he has just signed a 5 record contract with EMI. Those of you who have been here before may have heard his band play at either Tanga-Tanga or The Love Shack. Awesome southern rock guitar!! Until next week, keep dreaming Cabo and tight lines! Fly Hooker Daily Catch Reports Dec 30 to Jan 5, 2003 “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 30 DECEMBER, 2002 Today we had two couples on board the boat whose trip was paid for by dad. Bart Ricks was nice enough to give his daughters and their husbands a day of fishing aboard the “Fly Hooker”! Jack and Wendy Kaiser and Michael and Kristen Hakkert were happy when Juan and Manuel were able to get Jack hooked up to a nice Striped Marlin. Jack got a little help from Michael as everyone was suffering a little bit from the “tequila” flu. They had a good time and we hope their first experience will become a repeat experience (without the “flu”)! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 31 DECEMBER, 2002 Greg and Melissa Murphy were referred to us by our friends at “Baja On The Fly” and they brought their son and daughter with them. It was originally supposed to be a fly fishing trip for Greg, but he is headed up to the East Cape on Thursday for fly fishing so he decided to make today a “fun” family trip. Of course he brought along his fly fishing gear as well! They had a great time catching Sierra, perfect for the kids to fight, and Greg was able to get 5 of the buggers hooked up casting to them with one of his outfits. All in all a very nice experience for everyone and great conditions as well! Thanks guys, and good luck up the coast! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 2 JANUARY, 2003 Ron and his son Jeff and Jeff’s friend John were our anglers today and it was a last minute trip for us. The boys had gone fishing on another boat the day before yesterday and had fun catching Sierra and a couple of small Dorado, not a bad trip for their very first time out. They were supposed to go on the same boat today but the boat had been double booked. They were wandering the docks looking for another boat when we got together. It was a late start, not getting out of the marina until about 8 am, but the results were all right. Ron is a fisherman and he wanted to get a Marlin to the boat, it did not matter who caught the fish. If nothing was hooked up, well, that is the way Marlin fishing is sometimes, he would still rather be on the water than on the beach. Luckily for us, we were able to make the Marlin search a successful one. There had been a good bite going on at the Golden Gate banks so we headed out in that direction. After running for about an hour we put lures in the water, hoping for a Dorado or Wahoo or even a Tuna while we worked our way to the Golden. No fish bit on the way up and as we approached the Banks it looked like a small city. I counted 84 boats drifting the Bank, almost all of the dropping live bait deep. As we approached I did not see anyone hooked up so we proceeded to troll around the edge. Soon I saw two boats backing down and we slid into the spot and quickly dropped our own baits. After about 30 minutes we had a strike and John was hooked up. It took him 32 minutes to get the estimated 115# Striped Marlin to the boat. The fish came up fairly fast and then just stuck it’s head out of the water to check us out and John thought that there was not much fight to this Marlin fishing stuff. Once the fish got it’s bearings that attitude quickly changed. Down deep, then surface charging away from the boat, at one time the fish was only about 30 feet off the transom of another boat fishing with us! The bite was on and about that same time there must have been 5 boats right in that area fighting fish! After that bit of action we re-rigged and tried again for another 30 minutes without any luck. Ron wanted to give a try at catching a Roosterfish so we ran into the beach area and slow trolled live Mackerel and one Rapala lure. Three fish had their tails cut off by Sierra and we got one Sierra in the boat. That fish struck a Rapala lure and then we had one big strike. The fish ran a long way and crushed the bait so it was a good chance that had been a Roosterfish, but it did not hook up. After that it was time to run back to the Marina and so we did. Everyone had a great time and we hope to see the boys here again! Until Next week, Happy New Year from George, Mary, Juan and Manuel, the “Fly Hooker” Crew!