Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
October 28, 2007
Anglers -
Los Cabos was overwhelmed with visiting anglers this past week as the world's richest marlin tournament, the Bisbee Black and Blue was being held. The event lived up to all of the hype and expectations, with lots of fun, drama and large pay outs for participants.
On November 8 and 9 the Western Outdoor News will be sponsoring the annual Tuna Jackpot event, with anticipations high for another great tournament. Then following this will be the grueling off road race of the Baja 1000, which for the first time since the year 2000 will be finishing in Cab San Lucas, so needless to say there will be more than enough excitement in this area over the next two weeks.
The week started off with gusty winds blowing out of the north, similar to the Santa Ana conditions that plagued Southern California and contributed to fueling such disastrous brush fires. Ocean water temperatures varied from 80 to 84 degrees and sportfishing fleets were working areas from the Golden Gate and Jaime Banks on the Pacific to the Gordo Banks, Iman and Vinorama in the direction of the Sea of Cortez. The persistent north winds contributed to pushing in a greenish current in the areas north of the Gordo Banks and slowed down the action accordingly over the weekend. Supplies of sardinas remained abundant off of the San Jose Estuary area and this is the bait that produced best results for the local panga fleets. The action was mainly either on the Inner Gordo Bank or north on the Iman, also closer to shore off of Punta Gorda, yellowfin tuna was the most common species being encountered, most of the fish were averaging 8 to 15 pounds, but on some days a larger grade of tuna was found mixed in, with a handful of yellowfin in the 35 to 80 pound class accounted for. Of course there was a lot of pressure on these fishing grounds by the larger sportfishers participating in the tournaments and at times this caused the fish to go down, the action was definitely best early in the morning before all of the crowds showed up.
Dorado were found in the same area as the tuna, but were not as numerous and most of the fish were smaller in size, with a few exceptions of specimens over 20 pounds. A scattering of wahoo were found early in the week by angers trolling lures between Iman and Vinorama, but after the water changed color to a murky green this bite shut down as well. Other action included rainbow runners up to 20 pounds, dog tooth snapper to 45 pounds, sailfish to 100 pounds, cabrilla to 12 pounds, yellowtail snapper and sierra.
There were billfish reported from the Gordo Banks area, but the action on the Pacific was more consistent, particularly for striped marlin, where charter boats were accounting for a half dozen or more stripers per outing.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita sent out approximately 63 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 sailfish, 2 striped marlin,
8 wahoo, 98 dorado, 405 yellowfin tuna, 12 rainbow runner, 18 cabrilla, 15 dogtooth snapper, 33 yellowtail snapper and 18 sierra.
Good Fishing, Eric
