FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
April 30-May 13, 2007
WEATHER: It's getting warmer! I have been thinking about getting the air conditioning unit in my bedroom cleaned so it is ready to go. Our daytime highs are getting into the 90's while the nighttime lows are in the mid 70's. The humidity hasn't climbed up there yet so it's bearable, but the heat should be hitting us soon. This past two weeks has given us partly cloudy skies at the beginning of the month and clearing skies during the past week. No rain of course, and we are back to the prevailing northwesterly winds that start to kick in mid-morning.
WATER: Water temperatures on both sides of the Cape continued to climb these past two weeks. As of the end of this week we were seeing water temperatures on the Cortez side as high as an occasional 81 degrees close to shore and up around the Vinorama, Los Frailles and East Cape areas. A little farther off shore there were consistent 78-degree areas. On the Pacific side the water was warming up as well but didn't get much higher than 72 degrees. It was also a bit more off color on the Pacific with water close to shore being very green and outside 5 miles from the beach being a blue-green color. It looks as if the warm Cortez water is starting to push over into the Pacific and that could mean good things in the coming week.
BAIT: Almost the only baits available over the past two weeks were smaller Mackerel at the normal $2 per bait. The bait boats were saying the Humboldt Squid have moved in and have made getting bait locally difficult. Most of the bait they have been selling has come from the bait receiver out front, and they are getting low as well. There have been Sardinas available from a few Pangas at the normal $20 per scoop.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Almost the only action on Striped Marlin for the past two weeks has been in the area from Inman Banks to the Red Hill area. Early in this time frame the bite was really going off on the Outer Gorda Bank in the afternoon, but things have calmed down quite a bit since then. There have been quite a few fish found still, but they have spread out and are now being seen closer to shore between San Jose and Chileno, out to about 5 miles. Most of the Marlin at the outer Gorda Banks was caught while either drifting along the submerged bait balls with rigged live baits at 100 to 150 feet, or slow trolling rigged dead baits in the same area. Fish that were outside the D'estilledera area at the end of last month moved to the Gorda following the bait balls, but there were still nice big piles of bait up in the shallows off of Punta Gorda in 200-250 feet of water. Most of these Striped Marlin were in the 100-pound class with a few fish found pushing 150 pounds. There were reports of Blue Marlin bites up off of Los Frailles in the warm water but no reports of large fish yet.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: What can I say? I overheard one conversation on the radio this week where one captain was talking to another and mentioned getting into some decent Tuna, but there was no information as to when or where. Other than that, I didn't hear of any action on the Tuna. Hopefully some of them will show up soon!
DORADO: A Friend of mine caught a couple of Dorado this week, one about 50 pounds and the other about 40 pounds up off of Cabo Pulmo. In our area the fish have been considerably smaller. Yesterday I caught on that might have pushed 10 pounds and it was caught on live bait on the inner Gorda Bank. There have been a few Pangas coming in that got into Dorado very close to shore, but again these have been small fish in the 8-10 pound class. These Dorado were caught in very shallow water while slow trolling live bait for Sierra and Roosterfish.
WAHOO: My same friend who got the two nice Dorado this week also managed to get two nice Wahoo in the same area. One of them was reported as being about 40 pounds and the other about 50 pounds. Other boats have found an occasional fish in the past two weeks but there has been on consistency to the catch, almost all of the fish have been incidental catch.
INSHORE: The inshore water has warmed up along with the offshore water so the Yellowtail bite we had going on last month really tapered off. A few fish are still being caught off of the arch but it really takes commitment to get one, as things are not hot and heavy and the Sea Lions make getting a fish that is hooked up almost impossible to get to the boat. The Sierra bite is still on, but not the numbers we were seeing earlier in the year. A 10 fish trip is still a happening thing, but 20 fish per trip is pretty much over for most of the boats. Bottom fishing is a bit better as there have been more Grouper and Snapper caught than in the previous month. There are also some pretty steady Roosterfish days. These great fighting fish are not large with the average weight being 10 pounds, but when the bite is on it has not been uncommon to have a 10 fish day.
NOTES: I apologize to everyone for missing the report last week. I came down with the flue and it was all I could do to keep working, let alone sit down and write. Things are better now though and I hope it remains that way, being sick sucks. On the note side of things there are two important issues that you need to be aware off. First off, if you need to get a fishing license, try and do it from the states before you come down. For some reason we are now required to go on-line to purchase licenses with a credit card, and there have been a lot of failures happening. Supposedly you can fill in the forms, print out a receipt and then print out your license, but as a few folks have found out, there are some bugs in the system. Paying for a yearly license, a friend printed out his receipt, then inserted the receipt number to print out his yearly license and instead had a yearly license for someone else printed, and it was not valid until November of this year. The good part of this is that they are not checking licenses until this issue is fixed. And by the way, it appears that our state was the only one in Mexico to have the fishing license fees raised at the beginning of the year, if you go on line the cost of a license is the same as it was last year. Hmm??? The other issue that you need to know about is the fact that the Mexican legislature passed the Shark Norma #029. This law allows the commercial fishing of sharks by long-line vessels within the Sea Of Cortez and on the Pacific. Striped Marlin and Dorado are a very significant by-catch of this method of fishing and in many peoples opinion since the value of the by-catch exceeds the value of the targeted species, this law is only a roundabout way for the commercial interests to get into a new market. You can imagine what sustained long lining will do to the "Marlin Capitol of the World" in a few years. Short sightedness on the part of the government and deep pockets of the commercial industry will end up killing sport fishing here unless the government changes its mind. That is not going to happen without a public outcry and if you want to make your voice heard, please contact either Minerva Smith at the Minerva Fleet or Tracy Ehernberg at the Pisces Fleet for information on what you can do to assist in opening the ears of the Mexican government. Until next week, Tight Lines!