CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT
Capt. George Landrum
Fly Hooker Sportfishing
www.flyhooker.com
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
January 10-16, 2011
Weather: We have continued the cool weather as our daytime highs have been in the low 80's and the early morning, dark outside lows have been down to 57 degrees. Cold, but not too bad, on my trip back to Cabo it was 38 degrees in Guerrero Negro in the morning! We had clear skies with just a light wind from the northwest except for the 12th and 13th when we had some clouds and no wind.
Water: We had cool 68 degree water close to shore on the Cortez side and warmer 70 degree water offshore of there to start the week. On the Pacific side it was an average of 70 degrees until you got outside of the San Jaime Banks, then it dropped to 66 degrees. At the end of the week the warmer water from the south moved up and it was 70 degrees across the board almost as far as the boats could go, with the exception of a plume of 68 degree water that pushed down from the northeast and ran from the 1150 spot to the Cabrillo Seamount.
Bait: Bait was difficult to get this week as the bait boats don't seem to be able to find anything to catch. In order to get ten decent bait many boats had to go to three or four bait catchers, and still ended up with a few grunts or look-downs in the tank. Regardless of the types of bait, the boats still wanted $3 per bait. There appear to be better and more bait available in San Jose, but there is a territory dispute going on and the local guys are not letting the San Jose guys come here to sell, sigh. And of course they are not willing to go up there to get any, sigh. And it is an hour run for us to get up there, then an hour run back, sigh.
FISHING
Billfish: Let's see, a private 10 boat tournament for Striped Marlin and on the first day only one was caught. That one was caught close to home. Tell's the story of our marlin bite for the week. There are a few being seen but not many of them will bite. This has to be the slowest Marlin action I have seen in years.
Yellowfin Tuna: There were scattered fish, just as we had last week. Sometimes we could fins them out past the 1,000 fathom line to the south, other times just four miles off of the lighthouse on the Pacific side. The key was to be the first boat to find the fish, then you had a chance. If you were not the first boat then your chances were really lowered. None of the fish this week were large fish, the biggest I heard of was 35 pounds. Most of them were in the 12-20 pound class with an occasional school found that averaged 20 pounds. Many of the boats were flying tuna flags for Bonito. There were plenty of them around due to the cooler water. Average size for them was 4-5 pounds with an occasional school of 15-20 pound fish. Working yo-yo's over the rock piles around Punta Gorda kicked out some Yellowfin but the majority of fish caught there, as on the Pacific coastline, were Bonito averaging 15 pounds.
Dorado: Once in a while a fish in the 10-12 pound class was caught, bu these appeared to be stray fish, and were found close to the beach. There were no concentrations found this week, not even under floating debris. Cold water normally equals slow Dorado fishing and that is what we are seeing now. Give us another couple of weeks and Dorado will almost completely disappear.
Wahoo: Just like last week, as usual this time of year, lots of Wahoo flags flying everywhere and people get excited. Then they are educated about "Mexican Wahoo" Lots of sierra, but nothing really big, mostly 2-5 lbs.
Halibut: Just joking!!
Inshore: On one day, off the next, or maybe it was just a matter of the right place at the right time, but the Sierra bite was either wide open or non-existent. Personally, I think the schools were moving around really fast and if you could not find them in one spot, you had to cruise the beach fast in order to find out where they were. Once you got into them, limits were easy to get, but the fish were small at 2-5 pounds. Just like last week, the offshore fishing was slow so there were a lot of large boats working the shoreline for Sierra as well just to give their clients a chance to put some fish on the table. The Yellowtail bite was fair, with fish that are small by northern standards but decent by ours at an average of 12 pounds. A few Grouper and Amberjack rounded up the inshore catch reports except for an abundance of Bonito!
Notes: Lots of Whales out there!! A few of the restaurants are advertising "Marlin Tostados". Please let them know, when you see those signs, that you will not eat there due to the marlin being on the menu! Thanks!
If you are getting your own fishing licenses, you must have pesos!!! The people that sell the licenses around the marina can no longer take dollars from anyone. Get pesos the day before! No one has change for your US $100 at 6AM. 140 pesos per person per day, 290 pesos for weekly and 540 pesos for a yearly. Unless of course you buy them on Friday, that guy doesn't add a surcharge.
My music for the day is the sound of the pre-game show turned up loud in the living room. No one has any belief in the Seahawks! Come on, let's show them!!! Go Hawks!
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