FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
http://captgeo.wordpress.com/
Cabo Fish Report
Aug 13 - 19, 2012
WEATHER: We finally got some rain, after almost three years with just an occasional sprinkle. A lot of folks thought that the weather was a result of Hurricane Hector, but Hector passed well to the southwest of us and had no effect at all other than some swells. This rain was a result of a large area of weather moving in over us from the east, coming in off the Mexican mainland, and slowly passing across our area. Here at the house we measured 8 ½ inches, out at Cabo Real Golf Course there was just under 10 inches of rain. What was nice for us is that all this water did not come down in just one day, as often happens during a hurricane, instead it started off slow and allowed the soil to absorb a lot of moisture, great for the plants and helping to fill the aquafier. The rain started on Tuesday, just a ¼ inch every few hours, then came heavy on Wednesday morning, light showers after that, and then really dumping on Thursday morning. On Thursday morning I measured 3 inches at 10 AM, starting at midnight with most of the rain early. As a result there was massive amounts of flooding in the low areas and in areas up to 2 feet of sand across roads or built up at intersection. You can go on line and do a search, there are a lot of pictures posted out there. Our highs for the week after the storm were in the high 90's with high humidity as well, our lows were in the mid 80's. At the end of the week the skies cleared and the rain was over, but the roads continue to be cleaned up. We were all happy at the quick response by the city in getting the main roads cleared so fast. Expect to see a lot of greenery in the next few weeks as the desert shows it's appreciation by getting everything in bloom! It looks as if we may get a bit more in the middle of the coming week as well as another cloud layer is moving our way.
WATER: Hector did deliver the surf we expected and it happened to almost coincide with our wet weather. Swells to 9 feet were experienced on Wednesday but it died off quickly. The Port Captain closed the port to small vessels such as Pangas and water taxis for two days but the larger boats were still able to go out. Heavy rain and the swells did not make for great fun, but the fishing was pretty good. One thing all the rain did was dirty the water for up to 5 miles offshore as the arroyos filled with water and took massive amounts of sand and silt to the ocean. Farther out it was still blue, but we didn't really get any decent shots of water temperature until the end of the week. As of today, it appears that the water on both sides of the Cape are between 83 and 85 degrees with no real temperature break anywhere.
BAIT: Caballito and Mullet were available at the normal $3 per bait and you could get them if you were out early, many boats were unable to get bait and had to settle for frozen horse ballyhoo at $3 each.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Striped Marlin, Sailfish and Blue Marlin continue to excite anglers when they show up, and they have been doing that on a regular basis. The action has been spread out but most of the boats this week were finding the fish on the Pacific side as the attempted to avoid the swells coming from the east. My guess is that 40% of the anglers looking for a Marlin were able to hook up and quite a few that didn't care hooked up as well. The Striped Marlin were the most common billfish this week with Sailfish coming in a close second. The Blue Marlin were scattered out but there were enough of them caught to get your anticipation up, and even a small Blue Marlin is a heck of a fight. Live bait was the key to the Striped Marlin and Sailfish bite and once again lures accounted for most of the Blue Marlin. I still haven't heard of any Black Marlin in the past week, and with the inshore water dirty we probably won't for the nest week as well.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: It was nice to see the catch get better on Yellowfin Tuna this week, and they were found all over the place, just no really big ones. One friend did well fishing outside the 1150 and caught a few fish in the 70 pound class and a lot of smaller fish, but most of the anglers were happy to do well on fish averaging 12-15 pounds. Find the Dolphin and birds and you found the fish. Closer to home there were small pods of Dolphin with no birds but they still held plenty of football sized fish, we will have to see what happens this coming week as this is the time of year we normally start to get the big ones come in.
DORADO: Once again fish of the week, but there were not as many as last week, probably due to the weather and dirty inshore water. Most boats were able to get several for their clients and some of them were large fish over 30 pounds, but the average was 12 pounds and there were a lot of the little slipper sized once as well. I expect it to be even easier to find them this coming week as the debris washed into the ocean by all our rain starts to attract chains of food. Due south and along the Pacific side were the areas most of the boats worked as they were the more protected areas to fish, avoiding the swells and rain in the face until the last couple of miles coming home.
INSHORE: Roosterfish numbers were down once again and I don't really expect them to go back up anytime soon with the conditions of the inshore water. Most of the Pangas that fished early in the week were able to do all right on Amberjack and Red Snapper with a few other species tossed in the mix but when the rain started in earnest the inshore bite went away. At the end of the week the Pangas were venturing offshore for Tuna and Dorado due to the dirty water inshore. Also, lest I forget to mention it, one of our clients, Craig, fished from the shore at Migraino Beach in the surf and caught and released a beautiful 50 pound Roosterfish, but that was before the rain really kicked in and the water dirtied up. Way to go Craig! Oh, he caught a Striped Marlin as well when he went offshore, lucky guy!
FISH RECIPE: Check the blog for this weeks recipe! I know I'm slacking on this. I have a pile right next to me.
NOTES: Time for the Sunday trip to the beach with the dog. I don't think I am going in the water yet, I still think it's too dirty inshore but the pup doesn't seem to mind! This weeks report was written to the music of Dick Dale, that master of the Fender Stratocaster and early surf music legend. Until next week, tight lines!