Cabo San Lucas Bite Report for April 22-29, 2002 Capt George Landrum Fly Hooker Sportfishing [email protected] www.flyhooker.com CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT FOR APRIL 22-28,2002 WEATHER: It finally warmed up! Now we are sleeping with just a sheet and a ceiling fan. I love it like this. Pretty soon we will be needing the air-conditioner on at night. Daytime highs have been in the mid 80’s to low 90’s, night-time lows in the mid to high 70’s. No rain all week and mostly clear skies the last half of the week. (Handle With Care) WATER: That warm water we have been watching approach from the southeast finally arrived. We have a band of 78 degree water running off of Punta Gordo towards the southeast. Between there and a line south of the Cape the temperature is in the area of 74-78 degrees. From south of the Cape to the San Jaime temps are 69-74 degrees and to the west of the Jaime the water is showing a cool 64-69 degrees. Surface conditions are excellent as there has been no wind to speak of this week. (Dirty World) BAIT: Readily available are both Caballito and Mackerel at $2 each from the bait boats and Sardinas at $25 a scoop. (Rattled) FISHING: BILLFISH: All right! The warm water brought in the fish and not only that, it moved them in close! I have seen almost every boat that has gone out this week return flying at least one Marlin flag. Some of them have been flying three or four! Most of them have been Striped Marlin running from 80-120 pounds. The largest one I heard of this week was 220 pounds. There have been a few Blue Marlin caught also, so it’s time to change those top-shots and put on new line for the big boys. Most of the action has taken place from Punta Ballena to the old lighthouse, from 1/2 mile out to 15 miles out. Action has been an even mix of lures and live bait. Lots of jumpers and small groups of tailing fish keep the excitement level up all day. (Last Night) YELLOWFIN TUNA: With the hot action for other species few boats are bothering to search for the Tuna, but they have been found on the west side of the San Jaime and with pods of Porpoise. Only a few boats have been flying the flags and those fish were around the 15-25 pound size found with the Porpoise. Feathers and Cedar Plugs provided most of the action. (Not Alone Anymore) DORADO: Along with the Marlin, the warm water brought in the Dorado, and some mighty nice ones at that. Large fish in the 45-60 pound range have not been uncommon and there have been lots of them in the 20-30 pound class. Same areas, same lures as the Striped Marlin. (Congratulations) WAHOO: Yes, there have been some very nice Wahoo taken this week. Perhaps the combination of warm water and full moon got them going. Whatever it was, fish ranging from 30 to 90 pounds have been hitting the decks. Some boats have gotten two or three nice ones and some boats have just noticed a lure gone! Gordo banks, the 95 spot and the ledge at the lighthouse have been producing and the boats pulling at least one swimming plug have been getting most of the hits. (Tweeter And The Monkey Man) INSHORE: Steady action on the Sierra and there are some small Roosterfish arriving in the surf. Bottom fishing for the Amberjack and Pargo has also been good this week. Just outside the sierra area there has been plenty of action with a mix of Bonito, Skipjack and an occasional Dorado. With all the big game fish so close, a lot of the Pangas are going for them as well, leaving the shore pretty well open. (End Of The Line) NOTES: As you can see, it has finally happened, and if you were here this last week that is what you would have seen. Next week? We will keep our fingers crossed! Written to the music of The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1, Warner Brothers, 1988. "Fly Hooker" Daily Catch Report for April 22-29 “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 22 APRIL, 2002 Mike and Susan Waite have been booked to fish today for quite a while and Mike is champing at the bit to get a Marlin. When I talked with him on the phone last night he said that he really needed to get one because Susan had been wanting to catch a Marlin for a long time. With that in mind, Juan and Manuel headed out to the southeast. The water had warmed up quite a bit over the last few days and it was not long, about 12 miles out, that they came across temperatures in the 71.5-72 degree range. At a distance of 25 miles they finally got some action when a nice size Striped Marlin appeared in the pattern and tried to attack one of the lures. Manuel gunned the engines to keep the fish off the lure and to tease him a bit. At the same time Juan was hooking up a live bait to drop back into the pattern. Manuel kept teasing the fish for three or four times then as the fish was all lit up and ready, Juan dropped the bait back. The Marlin was on it in an instant and after taking the bait and turning away, the hook was set. Juan handed to rod to Mike at first, but in a moment the right angler was there and Susan proceeded to spend an exciting 45 minutes fighting her first Marlin! The fish did all the things a Marlin is supposed to do, lots of jumping, greyhounding, head thrashing and down and dirty tug-of-war stuff. Eventually they got the fish to the boat, very tired of course. For the last 10 minutes Juan thought that the fish may have died but as it got close they could tell that it had been tail wrapped on the last series of jumps. The Marlin was quickly unwrapped, unhooked and revived. A tag was placed in the fish, pictures were taken and now Susan can claim the she had tagged and released a Striped Marlin, estimated weight at 180 pounds! A very nice size fish for the species, congratulations Susan! After the fight, tag and release the lures were set out again. As they were being set another Marlin came in and tried to eat one. This fish jumped off really quickly. That was the action for the day and everyone had a great time. The water was beautiful and fish were caught! Thanks Mike and Susan, we would love to see you here again! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 23 APRIL, 2002 Keli and Ronnie were supposed to fish today and on Saturday and Sunday. These days had been held at her request for several weeks. She called us yesterday and said that they had spent all their money on a timeshare and were going home today. Ouch, teach me to not get a deposit! (later news, saw them walking around town on the 25th! Shame on them!) “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 24 APRIL, 2002 Charlie and Senga (Agnes backwards!) Nelson found Mary and I yesterday and booked the boat for today, Friday and Monday. They are friends of Brian, Chris and Tyler, the air traffic controllers who fished with us on Sept. 15th after being stuck here in Cabo after the bombing. The guys recommended us if Charlie and Sanga wanted to catch fish as opposed to going for a boat ride! Thanks guys! Anyway, Juan and Manuel were looking forward to getting them into a Marlin. All Senga wanted to do was enjoy the trip and it was up to Charles to catch the fish. He is no novice to big game fishing so understands that it can take patience. Today that is exactly what it took. Juan and Manuel started out 9 miles to the southeast where the water temperature was 72-72.5 degrees, just perfect. At 17 miles they got into an area that had a concentration of fish, other boats were hooking up all over the place. Nada, nothing, zilch for the “Fly Hooker”! They worked the area for a while then headed off looking for greener pastures. Juan says they saw about 8 Marlin tailing on the surface but none of them were interested in biting. At 1:40, almost the end of the day, and at a distance of 7 miles out, they finally got into a fish! Teasing the fish with speeding the engines up as it came in on the lures, Manuel kept the fish interested as Juan again tossed out a live bait. Hook up! At last and at almost the last minute! This was a picture perfect fish, doing all the things Marlin are known for. Lots of acrobatics and a good solid fight. It took Charlie 30 minutes to subdue the fish on the 40 pound line and Juan was able to place the tag! A Marlin tagged and a couple of beers on the way in, a nice trip. Thanks for being patient and letting Juan (who along with Manuel was getting stressed out over not hooking up)know that you know it takes time. Way to go Charlie! We hope you get more on Friday and look forward to seeing you at the dock at 6:30. “FLY Hooker” FISH REPORT FOR 25 APRIL, 2002 Today we had a direct booking at the dock and again I failed to get the names. Five guys from L.A. who wanted to go out and catch some fish, they came down with a case of beer, bought burritos and off they went. Spoke fluent Spanish (Mexican-Americans) so they and Manuel and Rigo spent all day talking and fighting fish. Beautiful conditions today and the fish were right on the doorstep. Punta Ballena, 5 miles up the Sea of Cortez and from 1/2 mile off-shore to 4 miles out the water was in the 73-75 range. One 70 pound Wahoo, one 60 pound Dorado, one 120 pound Striped Marlin, another Wahoo lost! Good fishing by any standard. The news is that the fish are packed in close to home and it takes no time to get to where they are. There were Blue Marlin caught today as well! As the wind has died this warm water has come in and brought the fish with it! Let us hope it keeps up for the next several months at least! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 26 APRIL, 2002 Charlie and Senga on their second day with us had a blast! Beautiful water, clear skies and good fishing close to home were exactly what the Nelson’s ordered. Charlie caught the bigger fish today, taking about 40 minutes to land a Striped Marlin estimated at 120 pounds. This fish was hooked on a live bait and was fought on the #40 line on the Shimano TLD-25. Senga’s fish was estimated by Juan on the tag card to be 120 pounds also but she thinks it was less because it only took her 15 minutes to get it to the boat. Her fish struck a lure and got hooked up. This fish was played by her on the Shimano Tiagra 50 WRLS with #80 pound line and a drag to match, so it is no surprise to us that it came in quickly. Now that they have each tagged and released a Marlin they want to go for eating fish on their Monday trip! Let’s see what happens then! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 27 APRIL, 2002 Brad and Brian, two guys looking for a boat to go fishing on loved the action today with Juan and Manuel so much that they wanted to book the boat for tomorrow as well. They fished on a Panga yesterday and dropped iron trying for Yellowtail with no success, then tossed lures for Sierra and caught 5. During the trip today they spotted lots of jumping Marlin and tossed bait to two pairs they spotted tailing. They hooked up a Marlin on the first pair they found and after about 20 minutes tagged and released the Striped Marlin. They hooked up 2 out of three Dorado that struck, landing one and they had a strike from a Wahoo. Not bad action for the day, and all of it within 15 miles of the Cape. Most of the action was around the 95 spot. I hope they have good luck tomorrow! “FLY HOOKER” FISH REPORT FOR 28 APRIL, 2002 Andy Jacomet and his friend Vince had been e-mailing us before their trip down here. Our friend Carroll had a client who wanted to share a boat for a day of fishing so we offered the chance to share to Andy and Vince. They accepted the offer and this morning I called the resort to give them a wake-up. They showed up for the trip but the other guy called and said that he got too sunburned the day before so he was canceling. (should have learned my lesson with Keli and Ronnie about getting a deposit!) Andy and Vince got a heck of a deal with the boat to themselves and proceeded to take full advantage of it. Andy brought with him a new Penn 70 on a new rod and hoped to get a fish on it but all that outfit got was an unidentified strike, probably a Marlin. The other action they had today was all Marlin! Vince tagged and released a Striped Marlin estimated at #180 and Andy tagged and released 2 Striped Marlin, one estimated at #140 and the other a baby estimated at #50. Two of these fish were caught on lures, one on live bait and they lost one on lures. They wanted to go again tomorrow but we are already booked with Charlie and Senga! Andy, and Vince, along with their wives met Mary at Tanga-Tanga for a beer and Charlie and Senga were there also. Everybody talked fishing for a while. I went out today on a friend borrowed 26’ boat because he wanted to take his dad and mom fishing and we were booked on the “Fly Hooker”. Dad’s gout was bad so he stayed at the resort and mom got sea-sick and we brought her in early. Out for a total of 3 hours maximum and we hooked into a Striped Marlin that mom got to fight for about 10 minutes before the hook pulled. All in all a good day for everybody! Until next week, tight lines form George, Mary, Juan and Manuel, The “Fly Hooker” Crew!