November 2-8, 2009
WEATHER: Our nice weather remained with us this week as we saw high temperatures in the mid to high 80's and the lows in the low 70's. One morning, Tuesday I think, the data on the truck dash showed 68 degrees. We had no rain this week and mostly sunny skies with light winds from the west and northwest.
WATER: The Pacific side has had a bit of a swell compared with the Cortez side, around 3-5 feet most of the time and in the late afternoons the wind has picked up just a little bit causing some whitecaps on top of the swells. The Cortez side of the Cape has remained calm. The water on the Pacific side has remained several degrees cooler on average than that of the Cortez side. Water close to the beach on the Pacific has been in the 78-79 degree range and rising a degree or so a little farther offshore. On the Cortez side the near-beach water has been 80 degrees and offshore it has been 81-82 degrees.
BAIT: We had a full moon this week so Caballito were tough to get and there were no Mackerel. When you were able to get the larger baits they were going for $3 each or more, depending on what the bait guys could get away with, there was a two day Tuna tournament at the end of the week that caused prices to go up a bit. There were Sardinas available at $25 or more per scoop; again the price depended on the tournament boats needs.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: There was a Black Marlin reported to have been caught on the Gorda Bank during the Tuna tournament that ended up weighing over 650 pounds. Ah, just little late to get any big money for that girl in a tournament! That was the only large Billfish I heard about this week, most of the action was on Striped Marlin and a few Sailfish. There were fish found scattered about all along the Pacific side, no strong concentrations were found anywhere. Getting a billfish strike was the average luck; a few boats were able to get one or two to the boat for a release.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: The big news on the Tuna front was the capture of a Yellowfin during the first day of the W.O.N. tournament that weighed 383 pounds! That fish was a real toad and was reported to have been caught while fishing with a live Bollito on the surface at the Gorda Banks. There were no other fish caught over 200 pounds and not really that many over 100 pounds. Most of the fish found were in among porpoise to the west of the San Jaime Banks and to the south of the Cape approximately 35 miles. There were 104 boats entered in the tournament so pretty much all the areas got covered.
DORADO: The Dorado bite has slowed down a little overall, but a few boats are continuing to do extremely well when finding debris on the surface. One boat found a dead turtle on the surface and loaded up on decent size Dorado averaging 20 pounds. For the most part the numbers are down, a good trip is five to 10 fish and the average size is now down to 10 pounds. During the Tuna Tournament there were only two Dorado weighed in over 30 pounds.
WAHOO: The Wahoo bite was good for the boats that targeted them and for everyone else it was an incidental catch. I have one friend that managed 15 Wahoo in three days, loosing a lot more than that, and the largest one was 85 pounds. During the Tuna Tournament the largest to come to the scales was 61 pounds. Working the high spots and the steep drops with either high-speed lures of slow trolled live bait on wire leader was the key for Wahoo.
INSHORE: It appears that the size of the Roosterfish shrinks week by week. The week before last they were averaging 5-10 pounds and this past week anglers were lucky to get one that weighed 5 pounds. The lack of larger baits may have had something to do with that though, as a small sardina tends to be a quick snack for a small roosterfish. Other inshore fish have yet to really arrive, there are a few Sierras being caught and an occasional small Yellowtail, but neither in any numbers. Most of the Pangas are concentrating on Dorado at the moment.
NOTES: Once again my thanks to Mark Bailey for the music selection this week. This week it is the music of 1100 Springs on a cd he labeled "Country Jams" Thanks Mark! Until next week, tight lines!