FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
October 27-November 2, 2008
WEATHER: Just when we thought the cool days were here, it warmed up again! I am not sure what happened, but our daytime highs have been in the high 90's while the lows in the evenings have only been in the low 80's. We expected the temps to be at least 10 degrees cooler by now, but nope, no luck, just sweat and sunburn. We had two days with cloud cover but no rain during the middle of the week.
WATER: Swells were slight to moderate on both side of the Cape this week, and the water temperatures on the surface did not vary very much at all, everywhere you went it was between 83 and 86 degrees. The cooler 83-degree water was outside the 1,000-fathom line to the south and southwest. The water on the Pacific side was nice and blue, on the Cortez side it was a bit on the dirty, green side, but not so much that it was un-fishable, just off-colored.
BAIT: The normal Caballito and Mackerel were available at the usual $3 per bait. There were Sardinas as well and since there was a tournament going on the price remained a bit on the high side at $30 a scoop.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: There were plenty of Striped Marlin to be found on the Pacific side of the Cape between the Golden Gate Banks and the shoreline, along with a good number of decent sized Sailfish. The Stripers were averaging 120 pounds and were biting well on artificial lures later in the week, early in the week the bite was a pretty even mix of lure fish and live bait fish. The Sailfish averaged 70 pounds and the catch ratio between the two was around three Striped Marlin for one Sailfish. There were still Black and Blue Marlin out there, I talked to quite a few anglers who hooked up to fish around 250-300 pounds, but I am not sure if there were any bigger fish in the catch. I did not get to the weigh station for the tournament and the web site had not been updated as of my writing this report.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: There were scattered Yellowfin caught this week, but no real big ones that I heard of. Football fish to 20 pounds in front of town to school sized fish to 50 pounds 30 miles offshore were caught by a few boats, but the schools moved around quickly and often could not be found the next day. I heard of two boats getting into fish averaging 80+ pounds 40 miles to the west, but the numbers could not be confirmed, nor could the location. Most of the school and football fish were caught on live Sardinas after chumming in front of the moving pods of Dolphin. The bait went quickly doing this, but the hookup ratio was good.
DORADO: The Dorado bite continued this week, but not in quite the numbers we were seeing last week. Anyone that wanted could limit out on these great eating fish (limit is two per angler per day) but instead of catching 8 or 10 each (releasing the small ones) most boats were putting their fishermen on three or four fish each. The fish were still concentrated on the Pacific side in the cleaner water, and most of them were caught within three miles of the beach. Trolled plastic lures in bright colors, and between 6 and 8 inches in length resulted in steady hook-ups on fish averaging 10 pounds. Slow trolled live bait resulted in fewer fish due to covering a smaller area of water, but the fish averaged 15-18 pounds.
WAHOO: I did not hear of any Wahoo being caught this week, but I am sure there were a few.
INSHORE: Once again there were small Roosterfish to 15 pounds to be found, and most of them were on the Pacific side of the Cape between the arch and the lighthouse. Most of the Pangas were fishing just a bit farther offshore looking for Dorado, and doing quite well on them.
NOTES: I wish I had information to give you on the Governors Tournament held this week, but like I said above, I was not at the weigh station in the afternoons and the website has not been updated. The next tournament on the list is the W.O.N. Tuna Tournament this week with fishing being on Thursday and Friday. This is one of the favorite tournaments of the year with plenty of give-aways and parties, plus it does not cost an arm and a leg to enter. I will let you know the results on this one for sure, check in next week for an update! Until then, bend you ear to the music of Mark Knopfler and keep those lines tight!