Sept. 20-26, 2010
Weather: We had a late developing tropical storm hit us on Tuesday. On Monday it was just an area of disturbed weather, then quickly became a depression, then by the evening had become Tropical Storm Georgette, with winds gusting to 45 mph. It passed a bit to the east of us, between us and San Jose with winds to 40 mph and about 3 inches of rain over 24 hours. The rain was nice to get, not too much but enough that as of yesterday there was green all over the desert as the grass started to sprout and the cactus started to bloom. As a result of the storm, the air temperature dropped by about 5 – 10 degrees with our daytime highs in the mid 80's and the nighttime lows in the mid to high 70's. At least for the first few days, then it started to creep up again. The rest of the week was partly cloudy with an occasional little spit of moisture, nothing you could call rain and just barely noticiable.
Water: The wind and swells resulting from the late developing Tropical Storm Georgette caused the Port Captain to close the port on Tuesday, and for good reason. It re-opened Wednesday just after daylight, and by then the swells had almost dissapeared but there was still an occasional bit of wind. The churning of the water along with the overcast that came along caused the water temperatures to drop an average of 5 degrees. The Sea of Cortes showed 80 to 83 degrees, starting from the Cape and working northward while the Pacific side had a cold band of 75 degree water from the lighthouse to the southwest, and outside of that, atop the San Jaime and the Golden Gate Banks the water warmed a bit to 80 degrees, and just a few miles farther west the water warmed again to 82 degrees.
Bait: The full moon has resulted in a lack of Caballito, and the water temperature has meant few Mackerel, if any. Instead there has been Green Jacks, Look-Downs and Mullet. Sardinas have been available if you are one of the first boats to San Jose, and you have to beat the local boats there. These baits are being brought down from the East Cape so if you are late, all you get are dead ones good for chum.
FISHING
Billfish: The cooling water temperature has resulted in more Striped Marlin being caught, particularly on the Pacific side. Blue and Black Marlin are still being found on the Cortez side but not as many as we had a few weeks ago. I am not sure if this is a result of the water temperature of from the moon phase, but there are still some decent fish out there as one of the smaller local boats proved early in the week when the scaled a Blue Marlin at almost #500. Lures caught allmost all of the billfish this week, but a few Striped Marlin were hungry enough to eat the Green Jacks. Many of the boats found themselves catching small Bollito for the first hour of the day in order to have decent baits.
Yellowfin Tuna: There was little change in the Yellowfin report this week as there are still occasional larger fish to 150 pounds being found on the Cortez side aroung the outer Gorda Banks and the 1150 area. Elsewhere, such as the Inman Banks and south of the San Jaime Banks there have been football size Yellowfin associated with Porpoise, and an occasional fish to 40 – 100 pounds with them. Just off of the lighthouse on the Pacific side there have been very small Yellowfin, bait size fish found by the Pangas.
Dorado: Dorado were the fish of the week and the size has slowly grown over the past few weeks. Most of the fish caught this last week were in the 15-20 pound range with a few in the larger class at 35 pounds. Most boats were able to get limits of these fish if they tried hard, and most of them were found on the Pacific side of the Cape.
Wahoo: The bite on Wahoo dropped off locally, but it may be due to the fluctuation in water temperature. There were still fish being caught, but not every day as we had happen the week before. This past week the bite was about ½ of what we had just recently seen, perhaps it will pick up as the water re-adjusts.
Inshore: Inshore was a repeat of last week, with the exception of the Snapper bite, the large swells caused by Tropical Storm Georgette mads getting into the rocks difficult for most of the week. There were Roosterfish, lots of small Skip-jack tuna and baby Yellowfin Tuna as well as loads of small Dorado that supplied most of the action for the Pangas this past week. As well as the usual inshore fish, there were a few nice Black Marlin hooked by Pangas slow trolling live bait for bigger Dorado, so there was always the chance of being surprised!
Notes:
Just recently it came to our attention you can now buy fishing licenses online. Some Spanish required...won't let me buy quantities, as it looks like you can only buy one at a time. I only played on the website for a few minutes this morning, look great for those yearly licenses!!!
https://www2.ebajacalifornia.gob.mx/Pesca/
Once again my great thanks to the guys from Jersey and Virginia, Ed, Gene, Herman and Kent for the new music! Today's report was written to the music off of the CD "Centerfield", a 25th anniversary edition of John Fogerty music, released in 2010 by Geffen Records. Until next week, tight lines!
http://captgeo.wordpress.com/