Cabo Bite Report Capt. George Landrum Fly Hooker Sportfishing [email protected] www.flyhooker.com CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT MAY 9-15, 2005 WEATHER: Day time highs in the mid to low 90’s and night time lows in the high 60’s have us feeling pretty good right now, and it’s really nice to have the humidity low! We ended up with a little overcast at the end of the week, nothing heavy and nothing that should bring any rain. Most of the week the wind was out of the north-west and it picked up a bit in the afternoons. WATER: This week the water conditions were almost a repeat of last weeks. The Pacific side of the cape is still much cooler than the Cortez side with the average temperature at 67-68 degrees while on the Cortez side the water has been mostly between 74-78 degrees. The temperature break that formed last week along the edge of the California current has stayed there and runs from the light house on the Pacific side in a SSW direction and keeps going for over 40 miles. Surface conditions on the Pacific side have been a bit rough due to the fairly steady NW winds but the Sea of Cortez has been really smooth and with almost no wind chop to be found. Once in a while in the afternoon the wind would shift and come from the SW and then things would chop up, but not often and not for long. BAIT: Early in the week getting bait was not a problem and mostly it was Caballito at the usual $2 per bait. Later in the week there seemed to be a bit of a problem if you were late getting out and some boats ended up leaving with no bait at all. There were some Sardinas found up at San Jose at the normal $20 per scoop. FISHING: BILLFISH: Striped Marlin remain the fish of the week once again. There was a great concentration of them up to the north on the Cortez side this week, around the Punta Gorda area. At any one time you could see between 60 and 80 boats working the area, and many of them were hooked up. While the Caballito were getting a few fish, most of the boats were having better luck catching their own Mackerel at the site and using them, sort of matching the hatch. Drifting with the live bait, slow trolling them both live and rigged dead worked well, and toward the end of the week there seemed to be a bit of an increase tendency to strike on trolled lures. At the end of the week the fish had either moved closer to home or a new group had come in because things started to take off around the 1150 spot. Not as concentrated as the fish at the Punta Gorda, they were there in numbers strong enough to make it a first stop destination for a lot of the boats. Average Marlin catch for those targeting the fish were two per boat, but many of the boats were releasing four and five per day. Of course there were a few boats that did not catch any, but that is why the stats are called averages! YELLOWFIN TUNA: Once again there were football sized fish showing up under the Dolphin, but not every pod held fish and not all the fish found would bite. When they did it was not uncommon to limit out on Tuna in the 10-25 pound range. Most of the fish were found near the temperature break south of the cape about 25 miles, where the water was a bit bumpy. There were nice fish holding on the Gorda Banks as well, but they were very picky fish. Nice Yellowfin from 30 to 100 pounds could be seen busting the water but the only anglers having any luck on them were the Panga fishermen out of San Jose who were there at gray light in the morning and using “Chilwillies” they caught themselves. DORADO: Still not a happening fish, there are a few more of them showing up every week. As the water continues to warm they should start to come on strong. There were fish found this week mixed in with the Yellowfin at the temperature break, and there were still fish found out at the 1,000 fathom line on the Cortez side of the cape. These Dorado averaged 15 pounds and were striking bright colored lures. WAHOO: Wahoo were out there this week and there were still a number of them caught out at Punta Gorda and around the inner Gorda Banks and the Red Hill area. A few of the fish caught went to 80 pounds and there were a lot of surprised anglers when they checked lures and found that there was nothing at the leader, a Wahoo had sliced through the leader and taken the lure without them even noticing. Dark colored lures in Petrelero and Green/Black seemed to be a favorite. INSHORE: There was not a lot of change in the inshore fishing, there are still a few Sierra being found on the Pacific side of the cape and a few Roosterfish as well. Everyone I talked to that had been Panga fishing said that they had good action, and pretty steady at that on a good mix of fish, with no one fish showing exceptionally strong. NOTES: I am going to be pretty busy this week since we are having the Roles/IGFA Championship Tournament in Cabo this coming week. Four days of fishing for 74 teams from around the world. You had to have won a qualifying tournament to be invited and it is a billfish release tournament on 30 pound line. It is being filmed by the Outdoor Network for an hour special later in the season. I don’t get to fish it but will be running the video boat if things don’t change. Sure is a good thing the Marlin fishing has been so good, now we are keeping our fingers crossed that it continues to stay good. This week the report was written to the music of Pink Floyd off the 1996 Capitol CD “Relics”. Until next week, Tight Lines!