FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
http://captgeo.wordpress.com/
Cabo Fish Report
April 11-17, 2011
WEATHER: A nice change was in store for us at the start of the week. The winds quit and the air warmed up. Our lows for the week were in the mid 60's while the highs were in the mid 90's. We had a little overcast so you didn't really feel the sun, but as many tourists found out at the end of the day, she was shining!
WATER: That cold water current we had along the shoreline on the Pacific side last week shifted offshore and at the end of the week the eastern edge, at 63 degrees, ran right across the top of both the Golden Gate Bank and the San Jaime Bank. The water inside of there, between the edge and the shoreline is now showing 70 degrees. This 70 degree water crosses the tip of the Cape at a distance of 25 miles, outside the 1,000 fathom line, and extends all the way up the Cortez side with a little warmer water, at 73 degrees, just south of the Gorda Banks. Surface conditions were much better this week on the Pacific side since the winds died down and it was almost glassy on the Cortez side.
BAIT: It was still difficult to get any good bait this week. I am not sure why, but out of 30 that would be swimming in the bait boats tank, only a few would be the right kind. At $3 each, most of us just had to say no, and instead went with strip baits or frozen ballyhoo. There were nice Sardinas available for $25 a scoop up at the Palmilla area.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: The Striped Marlin did move in a lot closer to us this week, but they were still hard to get a bite from. Many of the Pangas were trying for them as a change of pace from Sierra and Yellowtail, but after a day or so of frustration went back to fishing for the inshore fish. At a distance of only 5 miles off the arch, you were able to spend a lot of time working the fish, and if you had the right bait (see above) and good luck you were able to release a few fish each trip. For the most part though, the fish were very closed mouthed and would just roll and look at you then swim away. Maybe they are stuffed with squid? I don't know, just know that there are a lot of frustrated anglers and crews out there!
YELLOWFIN TUNA: Tuna were not the fish of the week! There were few found, and those that were found were not very large with an average weight of only 12 pounds. A few larger fish were caught, but not on a steady basis or in any numbers. Most of the larger fish were found while drifting live Sardinas after chumming heavily, and that action was occurring around the Gorda Banks area.
DORADO: I still didn't see any Dorado flags this week.
WAHOO: Once again the red/orange flags I saw this week were for Sierra and Sharks, not wahoo.
INSHORE: With the change in the weather and the sea conditions there was a lot more pressure on the Pacific side, but there was a reason for that. The Yellowtail bite was good up around the Marguerite area with fish ranging in size from 12 to 20 pounds. A good trip resulted in a double digit catch with more lost. Using iron was the way to go, and you got your arms very tired reeling these up as fast as you could! Sierra were still biting off the Sol-mar area and farther to the north, the bite on the Cortez side dropped off a bit. There were a few decent bottom fish like Grouper and Snapper caught as well, most of them on live Sardinas.
FISH RECIPE: One of my favorite snacks, and sometimes a meal, is fish ceviche. Everyone has a different way of doing it. In Guam we would use soy sauce, wasabi, yellow mustard, lots of lemon juice and crushed onion, adding minced red pepper to taste. Once that was to our tastes, we would add diced tuna. Here in Cabo it is a mix of soy sauce, diced onion, diced tomato, chopped cilantro and lime juice, then adding the diced fish, either sierra of whatever the catch of the day is. All of it is done to taste, and then the mix is allowed to sit for an hour to cook the fish in the lime juice and have the flavors meld. Serve with tortilla chips or saltines and there you go. Make sure there are cold beers handy!
NOTES: The weather could not be any better! We are seeing between one and four cruise ships a day most days, but those numbers are soon to taper off to only a ship a week as they finish moving up to Alaska for the summer season. The whales are becoming more scarce as they too move on toward more northerly waters. The beaches are quiet in the mornings, but with Easter week coming up that is going to change quickly. Going to the beach during "Semana Santa" (Easter Week) is a Mexican tradition and we have major numbers of visitors from the mainland come over on the ferries and on planes. The beaches become packed, and on some of them the family's just camp out. In town, the police do not allow any parking within two blocks of the beach, and all the wave runner operations are shut down in order to protect the swimmers. While that is going on it becomes a bit hectic, but always fun to watch and really gives us a chance to meet people. On that note, this weeks fish report is done. This one was written to the music of Chuck Allen Floyd on his first studio release "Tonight an Angle Fell". Thanks to Allen Bailey for the copy, and I like it so much I used it again! Until next week, tight lines!
I will be posting more to my blog now, please go to http://captgeo.wordpress.com/ and subscribe, you will be sent a notice every time I post a new article. Please feel free to send suggestions or if you have any ideas for articles. Thanks George