FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
October 20-26, 2008
WEATHER: Once again we had great weather here in Cabo. Our morning lows were in the high 70's and the daytime highs in the low 90's, just a bit warmer than last week but very nice overall. We had mostly sunny skies this week with no rain and light winds.
WATER: Both the Pacific side and the Cortez side of the Cape had slight swells at 1-3 feet on the average for most days, with the winds light and variable at 5-10 knots. There were a few times during the later part of the week on the Cortez side when the winds picked u from the north strong enough to kick the swells up to 4-6 feet with a very short distance between them, making it very uncomfortable for the boats fishing live bait on the outer Gorda Banks and northward, but these winds were short lived and within three hours the seas had calmed down.
BAIT: Due to the Bisbee Black and Blue Tournament there was a light demand for the normal Caballito and Mackerel, but they were available at the usual $3 per bait. Sardinas were in great demand in order to catch the small Yellowfin Tuna and Bonita used for live bait on the big fish, and the price went up accordingly. We spent $100 per day for three scoops or Sardinas each day, and on the first two days almost ½ of them were dead when delivered, sigh. Anyway, you could get bait here at the marina but it was pricey, a lot of the charter boats picked up 10 baits before leaving and caught anything else they needed while out on the charter.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Striped Marlin were there in abundance if you were fishing either on the Golden Gate Bank or just to the inside of there. We had groups this week that were doing double-digit fish every day, between 12 and 15 Striped Marlin releases per day, and a few that were in the two or three per day range. If you were in the right place at the right time with the right equipment the fishing was outstanding. Live bait was the key for the large numbers, and finding the bait balls was the most important thing of all. As far as the Blue Marlin and Black Marlin were concerned, the catch numbers from the Bisbee tournament speak for them selves. 141 boats, fishing three days makes for 423 fishing days. Catching two fish over 300 pounds means one decent fish per 212 days effort. This year you may as well have gone to Florida looking for big blue and Black Marlin, the results were dismal, unless of course you were the boat that was across the board in the jackpots and caught a 313 pound Marlin on the last day. In that case you were not complaining about taking home a check for over 2 million dollars. Sigh.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: There were more Yellowfin caught for bait for the Bisbee tournament than between all the charter boats combined. Having 60 boats all tossing out cut Sardinas and live chum in a very small area tended to concentrate the bait and the Tuna. Yellowfin to 15 pounds were caught in decent numbers every morning right in the middle of the bait along the drop-off. Farther offshore there were fish showing amongst the Dolphin, and they were ranging in size from 20 to 120 pounds. Smaller lures than most of the boats were pulling, I mean lures from 6 to 10 inches in length and in darker colors resulted in decent numbers, but live bait dropped in front of the moving schools resulted in the larger fish.
DORADO: There were plenty of Dorado out there this week and most of them were pretty close to home. The area between the Cape and Los Arcos on the Pacific side put out the largest numbers of fish, but the average size was down a bit from last week, with 10 pounds being the average size. There were still many fish in the 25-35 pound class, but there were very large numbers of smaller fish as well. That bodes well for the next month as these fish can gain as much as 5 pounds per month in weight.
WAHOO: The waning moon resulted in fewer Wahoo bites than last week, but there were still a few decent fish caught as incidentals during the tournament. I saw several fish in the 60-pound class being brought in from tournament boats. Most of these fish were caught while fishing offshore and were not in any concentrations.
INSHORE: There were some small Roosterfish to 15 pounds with the average around 8 pounds caught this week. Live Mackerel were the main bait used and most of the fish came from fairly close to home, between the Hacienda Hotel and the Chileno Bay. Most of the Pangas were concentrated on the Dorado bite instead of the traditional inshore species.
NOTES: The Black and Blue Tournament this week was a big disappointment with only two qualifying fish weighed. I heard a lot of comments that the lack of success combined with the tight economy might mean a definite drop in the number of participants next year. We'll have to wait and see what happens with the economy.