Cabo San Lucas Fishing Report Mar 23-30, 2003 Capt George Landrum Fly Hooker Sportfishing [email protected] www.flyhooker.com CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT FOR MARCH 24-30, 2003 WEATHER: Almost feels like summer is here this week as our daytime and nighttime temperatures are a bit warmer than the last two weeks. Our daytime highs were getting into the mid 90’s and nighttime lows down to the high 60’s and low 70’s. It would cool down a few evenings when the wind switched and blew from the southwest but all in all it was a warm week. A few cloudy days but not much wind this week and no rain, of course. (Surfin’ U.S.A.) WATER: We still have a plume of cool water (65-67) running down the Pacific coast out to a distance of about 12 miles and on the Sea of Cortez side of the Cape the water is beginning to warm up , right now it is in the 71-72 range. The Pacific side is still staying in the 67-69 range but is warming up a bit as well. Surface conditions have been good this week with a light chop on top of 3-4 foot swells. (Surfer Girl) BAIT: Most of the bait I have seen this week was Caballito but there were a few Mackerel mixed in there. They have been the normal $2 per bait and I am not sure if there have been any Sardinas here in Cabo or not. (Be True To Your School) FISHING: BILLFISH: The Striped Marlin are starting to show up again and a few boats were flying two flags when they returned. Most of the fish have been found on the Sea of Cortez around and outside of the Gorda Banks but they have been seen jumping and a few have been hooked up as far south as Cabo. As the water warms we should start to see even more show up. Dark colored lures (green/black, black/red, purple/blue) have been working as has live bait dropped back or tossed to tailing fish. I(I Get Around) YELLOWFIN TUNA: The fish of the week for almost all of the boats! The Tuna have been located around 25-40 miles offshore and that has made it a bit of a run for a lot of the boats, but they are nice school fish with most of them in the 40-60 pound class. They have been mixed with the Dolphin and the first few boats to the fish have had great luck (as usual). Lures that were working for the Marlin have been hot for the Tuna as well and have outproduced the feathers on this size of fish. The fish have been scattered everywhere from outside Gorda Banks to north of the San Jaime Banks. Those have been the concentrations, but there have been a few nice 60-80 pound fish caught just off the arch by boats targeting Yellowtail! What a surprise for them! (Fun, Fun, Fun) DORADO: The numbers are about the same as last week with most boats getting at least one Dorado hook-up, and they have been nice size fish with a lot of them in the 30-40 pound class. Bleeding Mackerel and other bright colored lures were working well on them, as well as slow trolling live bait in an area where fish were spotted. Most of the Dorado were found either around the Tuna or very close inshore. (Barbara Ann) WAHOO: Again, a few Wahoo were caught and many more were hooked up and lost but there was no wide open bite on the fish. Most of the fish were blind strikes while searching for other species. (Wouldn’t It Be Nice) INSHORE: The Sierra bite has been good this week with a lot of the boats getting fish in the 5-8 pound class. Anything with a good dose of orange in it has been a hot item and getting a lot of strikes. Yellowtail to 15 pounds on live bait and iron off of the Arch and Grey Rock in water up to 200 feet in depth provided anglers who had strong arms a bit of action in the middle of the week, as did the occasional Yellowfin Tuna. Bottom fishing for Snapper and Grouper resulted in a few nice fish in the 8-15 pound class. There are still some nice Dorado to be found close in and best results have been obtained by slow trolling live bait. I have not seen any Roosterfish this week but I am sure they have been caught, and as the water warms up and the Mullet start to school they will start to bite. (Good Vibrations) NOTES: The fish were offshore this week and that resulted in quite a run for most of the boats. There were plenty of things to see out there as there are still Whales coming through and lots of Dolphin, Porpoise and Seals. The town has been full of Spring Breakers and there has been a film crew running around filming “Spring Breaker” and word is that this is the same bunch that filmed the movie “Jackass”. There is supposed to be another movie to be filmed here in the next few months and it is based on the “Iliad”, will be called “Troy”, will star Brad Pitt and will spend close to $15 million here in Cabo. The town needs this income as things are slow right now. The kids don’t have a lot of money to spend and charters have been slow. We are all hoping things pick up soon! This weeks report was written to the sounds of the 1990 Capitol-EMI release “The Beach Boys All-Time Greatest Hits” Until next week, tight lines! "Fly Hooker" Daily Fishing Report for March 23-30, 2003 “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 28 MARCH, 2003 Sam Attisha and his friend were our anglers for today but there was supposed to be three of them. Their fiend lives just outside Denver, Colorado and was snowed in and unable to get to the airport for the trip! Sure am glad we live where it doesn’t snow! Sam knew this morning that the fishing has been a little bit slow so he said they would be happy just to tie into something. Juan and Manuel headed out to their favorite area, south of the Jaime Banks. While working the area they had a blind strike on a Yellowfin Tuna of about 40 pounds. It was a nice fight and by the time the fish was in the boat several other boats had come on the scene and hooked up also. The lines were put back out and about a minute later they hooked up to a Dorado that weighed about the same as the Tina, just around 40 pounds. Two very nice fish in the boat in a short time. Later on they spotted a Marlin come into the lures and dropped back a live bait, but the fish refused to eat. The water was nice, not too choppy at all and they came back to the marina happy to have caught something good to eat and to have had a nice day on the water. While the “Fly Hooker” was out, I was out with my friend Pat on his 21 foot Alumaweld and we headed the opposite direction, up the Sea of Cortez. We saw Pelicans diving just in front of the Hacienda del Mar resort and pulled in and dropped back two small Rapallas. Two passes on the Pelicans and two Sierra! All right, fish in the boat! Our objective today was to get into the Yellowfin Tuna that had been in the vicinity of Gorda Banks. Pat had some new gear that he wanted to check out and only a big fish would be able to put it through it’s paces. When we got to the vicinity of Gorda Banks we put out the lures and right away we started to see Porpoise, only they were the wrong kind, these were the large black Porpoise. We kept heading out to the east and as we passed over the outer Gorda, we had a Marlin come in on the lures and slap the Marauder on my rod. The fish came back and slammed the lure several more times before leaving the area. About 5 miles out from there we saw another Marlin tailing on the surface and pulled the lures past him. This fish lit up and came into the spread when he saw the lures but did not hit any of them. In the distance we could see two boats and they appeared to be stopped. Thinking that they might be ion the Tuna, we headed their direction. Looking back, perhaps we should have pulled the lines in and cruised out there but instead we trolled. As we neared, we could see three boats in the area and they were leapfrogging each other, chasing the fish and Porpoise. We know they were good size fish because each time the boats hooked up, it was quite a while before they started up again. We finally got into position in the Porpoise and the long line goes off with w whirl of the clicker and we have a fish on! At first we thought it was the Tuna we were looking for but then it jumped and we knew we were hooked up to a big Bull Dorado. It took Pat about 35 minutes to get the fish to the boat and by that time there were a dozen boats working the Porpoise. We put the lures back out and had one more strike, this one on the Marauder, and it was a Tuna by the look of the tooth marks, but the fish did not hook up. Time was going by fast and we had to turn for home so we went back over the Gorda on the way in. Something struck the Marauder again as we passed over the pouter bank and we made a circle over the spot. Pat spotted the Marlin following the short jig and I had him pulse the engine, making the lure speed up and slow down. The fish lit up and took the lure! Pat had the Marlin on for about 15 minutes before it threw the hook but he had a blast. It was his first Marlin and the fish must have jumped 24 times! On the way back we passed another pod of Porpoise but could not get a strike from them and we saw a Marlin free jumping outside the Westin resort. We arrived back at the Marina three hours later than I had told Mary but we sure had a good time!