Cabo Bite Report Capt George Landrum Fly Hooker Sportfishing [email protected] www.flyhooker.com CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT APRIL 11-17, 2004 WEATHER: The weather changed somewhat this week. It started beautiful at the beginning of the week, hardly a cloud in the sky. Thursday it started clouding up, making it a little muggy. The wind from the north-northwest would pick up about noon making for a rough ride back from the fishing grounds, but worth it! Wind would die down in again in the morning for smooth sailing out to where the tuna are biting. On Saturday it started to blow really hard at noon and a lot of the boats struggled to get back, but that wind died down in the evening and Sunday was fine. Our overnight lows were in the 65-70 degree range while the daytime highs were around the 85-90 area. WATER: We have been seeing a range of water temperatures from 62 to 72 degrees this week with the colder water running along the Pacific coast from outside the Golden Gate and inside the San Jaime Banks, continuing down the line and going to the south of the Cape as far out as 40 miles. This cool green water to the south is from 15 to 20 miles wide and is from a low of 62 degrees to a high of 67 degrees. To the west it quickly warms to 72 degrees and to the east it warms to just as much, but takes more distance to happen. Temperatures at San Jaime and Gorda Banks are in the 72 range while Golden Gate remains around 65 degrees.. BAIT: The normal $2 per bait for Caballito with very few small Mackerel available. I did not hear of any Sardines making it down to Cabo from San Jose. FISHING: BILLFISH: There were very few blue flags flying this week and it is probably due to the water temperature close to home. The Striped Marlin that have been caught all either came from at least 30 miles to the west or up around and past the Gorda Banks, where the water was warmer. While the bite on Striped Marlin was slow and that on the Blue Marlin not there at all here at the Cape, we did have some Swordfish action continue. A few private boats did night trips and managed to hook fish ranging from 60 to 250 pounds and a couple more were caught by the charter fleet baiting fish found on the surface. YELLOWFIN TUNA: Almost a repeat of last weeks report on the Tuna. They are getting a little bigger. At least bigger than footballs. Some nice 25-40 LB fish were being caught out at the Jaime, catching them with the porpoise. The ride hasn’t been bad getting out to San Jaime, but if that wind picks up in the afternoon, it’s a rough ride back. Again, small feathers in dark colors worked well as did larger lures in Petrelero (sure must be a lot of squid out there now). The Sea of Cortez side, out to 15 miles while the wind blew, and out a bit farther after it stopped on the weekend had the majority of the fish, perhaps due to the small temperature break there. Unfortunately there have been a few Tuna Seiners sighted both at the San Jaime and at the 95 spot. On the weekend it appeared that they had set on the San Jaime as all of a sudden the fish that been there disappeared as did the Seiners, and the Porpoise that were around were acting very scared of boats. DORADO: Very few Dorado this week. Still getting some nice size fish. Also I have heard of a few small ones being caught this week and that usually means the schools are coming! 5 miles out off the coast on the Cortez side was a good area for a fish or two if you were lucky, and otherwise you needed to find something floating in the water. Live bait was the key as usual. WAHOO: Some nice Wahoo showing up this week. Seeing a lot of 40-80 LB fish. I love the end of April. My favorite fish for Sashimi! And the mangoes are starting to come in for fresh mango salsa on the grilled Wahoo. Just off the coast on the Cortez side and on top of the San Jaime seemed to be where the fish were at and they were striking dark colored lures. INSHORE: Slow fishing in rough water on the Pacific side, but those that could handle it found fair fishing up around the lighthouse on the Pacific and just off the Arches for Yellowtail to 25 pounds on live bait dropped deep and irons in white. There were also Sierra in the 4 to 8 pound range in the same area as well as right in the Cabo San Lucas Bay and up around El Tule. The favorite for good catches of Sierra seemed to be dark colored hootchies run deep with the use of a planer or down-rigger. Elsewhere the inshore action was slow with only a few fish found. NOTES: Swordfish continue to be the talk of the week around the docks , at least from the private boats. The Charter fleets are happy with the number of Yellowfin Tuna that are showing up, but only a few of the Captains seem to be concerned about the flagrant Purse Seining going on right in front of Cabo. Some of them have talked about it but say that it happens every year. Even though it is supposed to against the federal law for them to set nets inside the 50 mile limit, there is no enforcement available so it continues to happen. Sigh. There are fewer Whales being seen and that is normal, as around Easter every year they head back to the north. This weeks report was written to the music of Jimmy Buffett on the MCA 1990 release “Feeding Frenzy”. Fly Hooker Daily Catch Reports Capt. George Landrum "Fly Hooker" Sportfishing [email protected] www.flyhooker.com WEEKLY FISH COUNT YELLOWFIN TUNA: 34 CAUGHT, 15 RELEASED (#4-#30) BONITA: 15 CAUGHT, 11 RELEASED (#15-#20) “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 15 APRIL, 2004 Professional Fly Fishing guide Jeff deBrown and his client Russell Mehl fished the “Fly Hooker” today. Russell and his wife made the arrangements for this trip before they left Las Angles on the cruise, and Jeff drove down from the East Cape to meet with them. Russell’s wife was not feeling well so it was just Jeff, Russell, Juan and Manual on the trip. They managed to get out of the harbor by 8 AM (a surprise considering the cruise ship event) and were back dropping Russell at the dock at 1 PM. They had a good time and were able to get into the Yellowfin Tuna, but were not able to get any Sardinas for bait. Without small baitfish to bring the Tuna behind the boat and boiling, they had to resort to trolling flies. Not a bad thing to do, and they had good luck doing it. The biggest fish Russell got was a Yellowfin that was around 25 pounds, and it put up quite the fight on the long rod. They ended the trip catching 6 fish, three of them in the 25 pound class, and released three smaller ones. Not bad for a half day! Good going guys! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 16 APRIL, 2004 Today was supposed to be a free trip with just me and my Webmaster but he ended up canceling yesterday morning, claiming that he was up to his eyebrows in work (construction) and would not be able to go. Hey, sometimes things work out all right! Instead of Phil, we were able to get Steve, Ken and Carl out on the boat. Steve has fished with us before and since they all just got in to town and were looking for a fishing trip we were able to accommodate them It was just a half day, but they were able to get into the Yellowfin Tuna. The bite was not wide open but 5 nice fish in the box was all right! Enough for a few dinners at least! Thanks Steve, and it was good to meet Ken and Carl. Ken is a livestock broker and Carl an auctioneer, a real blast to be around both of them! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 17 APRIL, 2004 Bob Gaede, his wife Judy and Grandma (88 years young), are here again and fished with Juan and Manuel today. What a day they had! There were big swell south of the north-west in the morning but not too much wind and they went out 16 miles before putting lines in the water. After trolling for around an hour they heard over the radio that there was some action going on 4 miles away. Off they went and were they ever glad. Doubles, triples, lots of singles and they only kept the largest fish or small ones with broken gills. They ended up with the box full and released at least 15 Yellowfin between 4 and 12 pounds and a half dozen Bonita of 12-20 pounds. At just around noon the wind started to blow, and blow hard! It took a while to get home and everyone was thankful when they rounded the Arches top the calm waters of the bay. Juan figured that they had caught at least 31 Yellowfin and 6 Bonita this trip, and everyone went home with lots of fish, even after releasing more than half the catch> A great day on the water, and Grandma caught the largest one!