Cabo San Lucas Fishing Report for Dec 14-21, 2003 Capt George Landrum Fly Hooker Sportfishing [email protected] www.flyhooker.com CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT FOR DECEMBER 14-20, 2003 WEATHER: This weeks highs were in the mid to high 80’s and the lows were in the high 50’s. We had a bit of scattered cloud cover early in the week, clearing toward the end. No rain, of course. The wind died down from last weeks blowing and we had only slight breezes for the most part. WATER: Surface conditions have been excellent this week with only small swells and a slight chop almost every day. Water temperatures on the Pacific side have remained in the mid to high 70’s and the Cortez side has been about the same. The only exception on the Cortez side has been a fairly strong temperature break over the area of the Gorda Banks and in shore to just south of San Jose. There, the in shore water and water to the north of the Banks has been as cool as 72 degrees while just a very short distance away the water was showing us 76 degrees. Of course, the cooler water was green as well. Over all, I would call the water conditions good for the entire week. BAIT: Bait of the week has been Caballito, as normally happens with the new moon. They have been the usual $2 per bait and there have been Sardinas as well at the normal $20 per bucket. FISHING BILLFISH: Marlin fishing was slow this past week with the exception of those willing to put in the time soaking live baits deep up to the north of the Pacific Lighthouse. There was a small concentration of Striped Marlin in the area and if you put in the time you got bit, but it was a tide event, you had to be there right when the water started moving after the slack. In other areas the fishing was sketchy with few Striped Marlin sighted on the surface and few Blue Marlin strikes. I would venture to guess that the Billfish success rate for the Marina was probably as low as 10%, but the few boats that worked the deep dropped live bait had at least quadruple that rate, with some boats getting multiple bites and fish. The water is still warm enough for Blue Marlin and there were a few caught, mostly in the 250-300 pound class. YELLOWFIN TUNA: The Yellowfin were far off shore this week, at least most of them. I did talk to a few boats that were able to find Pods of Porpoise as close as 11 miles and also were able to get fish out of them, but for the most part the fish were 30+ miles out. Average size was just a little bigger than footballs at #20, but there were a few good catches of fish to 45 pounds. Best areas seemed to be straight south 30 miles and from there to the south end of the San Jaime Banks. Live Sardinas on #2 hooks dropped back in a chum line worked when the fish were not moving fast, otherwise it was a run-and-gun deal if there were more than three boats working the fish. For only one or two boats working, feathers in dark colors and cedar plugs worked well. DORADO: There were some great catches of Dorado made this week, at least early in the week. Almost all the action was on the Pacific side up around Golden Gate Banks. The key to the great results was plenty of live bait and being able to find floating debris. Quite a few boats were able to do both and caught limits of Dorado to 35 pounds with a few fish a bit larger. In all other areas the fishing was slow for Dorado, with only a scattered fish showing up. There were fish in close to shore, sometimes within 100 yards of the beach, but for the most part these were smaller fish, the larger ones going a possible 15 pounds. WAHOO: The floating debris holding Dorado was also kicking out some nice Wahoo to 50 pounds to the first boats on the scene. As many as four fish a boat were found on some of the wood out there. In other areas, the edges of the San Jaime and the Golden Gate let go of some fish in the 40-70 pound class and I heard that there were a couple of large fish, close to 100 pounds caught on the Outer Gorda Bank early in the week. On the Cortez side live bait seemed to be the best bet while deep swimming plugs and metal jet head lures worked well on the Pacific banks. IN SHORE: Sierra, small Dorado and a few small Roosterfish pretty made up all the inshore action this week. Oh yeah, a scattering of needlefish as well! Most of the Pangas that went out decided to try off shore as far as 10 miles since the fishing just off the beach was so slow. NOTES: It is strange that the flights down to Cabo are almost all full but there seems to be so few people in town. Perhaps it is the holiday season and most of the people are families and just stay at the resorts. The fact that there are so few people in town show up in the number of boats going out this week, it has been slow for charters as well. Add in the fact that the fishing has slowed down, and I start to feel lethargic! This week is Christmas though, and everyone here is starting to get into the spirit. I hope that where ever you are, you are getting into the holiday spirit as well. Perhaps you will get a fishing trip to Cabo from Santa! Felize Navidad and tight lines, see you next week! This weeks report was written to the music of Lacy J. Dalton. "Fly Hooker" Daily Catch Reports for Dec 14-21, 2003 Capt. George Landrum "Fly Hooker" Sportfishing [email protected] www.flyhooker.com “FLY HOOKER” REPAIR REPORT FOR DECEMBER 12-18 Bet you thought that this was going to be a fish report, huh? Well, I wish it was but we had a problem with the starboard motor on Friday and were down for a week. New sleeves, pistons and rings as well as gaskets, engine back in the boat around noon on the 18th, everything hooked up and test run. Great oil pressure again and it is running great. While we were down we also did a bit of repair work on the deck around the engine covers, nice and solid again! The boat’s up and working again and Mary says that my Christmas presents are in the engine! As long as she (the boat) keeps running, that’s fine with me. “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR DECEMBER 19, 2003 Garland Cannon and his friend Ray booked the “Fly Hooker” for three days and today was the first. The fishing has been a bit slow so Juan and Manuel had to search for fish. It was not until they were 27 miles out that they finally got into some Tuna and they hooked up three on the first pass. The fish were in the 20-25 pound class and on the next pass they got one more. The fish then went down and that was the end of the action. Garland and Ray cancelled tomorrow and Sunday saying that they did not like having to go 27 miles to get into the fish. Well, I don’t like it either as it sure burns a lot of fuel, but if that is where the fish are, that is where we go. Guess we could have just gone on a boat ride close to shore and saved a lot of fuel and maybe caught a Dorado, but we did try to get them into fish. They came with four coolers they wanted to fill with fillets in four days of fishing. We could have deep dropped live bait for Marlin, but they wanted eating fish. We got coal in our stocking on this one as we put all the deposit toward the day of fishing, sigh. Oh yes, we put them on another boat yesterday and they caught one Dorado. That boat ended up towing in another boat for a couple of hours and we ended up refunding half the charter money. Merry Christmas!