Cabo Bite Report

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[font "Times New Roman"][center]Capt George Landrum[/center] [center]Fly Hooker Sportfishing[/center] [center]gmlandrum@hotmail.com[/center] [center]www.flyhooker.com[/center] [left][/left][/font][font "Times New Roman"][size 2] [center] [/center] [center] [/center][/size][/font][font "Times New Roman"] [left]CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT FOR JANUARY 18-24, 2003-04[/left] [left][/left] [left] [/left] [left] [/left] [left]WEATHER: Remember when I said we had two days of rain the week before last? Well, it is starting to seem like September as we received another heavy rainfall Friday night this week. Downtown streets flooded as we received about 1 1/2 to 2 inches of rain overnight. We had overcast skies starting on Wednesday but by the 24th the skies had cleared and we were back to sunshine. The wind was blowing pretty good during the cloudy days and the temperature never got above 75, but at the end of the week our night time lows were in the 60 degree area and the daytime highs had risen to around the low 80’s.[/left] [left][/left] [left]WATER: The Pacific inshore remained cool and green this week and the inshore on the Sea of Cortez became that way as the California Current pushed the cool water around the tip of the Cape and up the coast. This water was 67 to 69 degrees and formed a large loop or eddy on the Sea of Cortez side that covered the area between the coast and out to the 1150 spot on a west to east run and from the 95 spot to the Gorda Banks on a south to north run. Off shore on the Pacific side the water remained in the 70-72 degree range with slightly warmer water 40 miles offshore. To the south of the Cape we had water 73 and 74 degrees only 15 miles out. The offshore warmer water was nice and blue.[/left] [left][/left] [left]BAIT: Bait was easier to get this week than the past two week as almost all the bait boats had Mackerel available at the normal $2 per bait.[/left] [left][/left] [left]FISHING[/left] [left][/left] [left]BILLFISH: The Marlin bite started off slow this week as it ended slow last week, but the bite sure started to pickup during the middle of the week and then died again with the rain seeming to have had an effect on the fishing. The best Marlin action for the week was up the Sea of Cortez around the outside of the Gorda Banks. Boats were spotting as many as 20 Striped Marlin a day and getting the chance to toss bait at as many as 75% of the fish spotted. Most of the bites were on live bait. The fish were averaging 110 pounds but a few boats actually found fish as small as 25 pounds. There were also some late Blue Marlin in the area as many were spotted coming into the lure patterns and a few were hooked on live bait, mostly Skipjack Tuna and small Yellowfin. Some of the Blues were reported to be in the 500 pound class.[/left] [left][/left] [left]YELLOWFIN TUNA: Some of the long range boats out of San Diego continued to work the San Jaime Banks this week but their results were not as good as the week before. For the local boats looking for Yellowfin Tuna, the best bet seemed to be to the south of the Jaime looking for the Porpoise. The fish that were found were not large ones, most of them averaged just 12 pounds, but they were there in quantity and there was always the chance for a big one to come busting in on the pattern. The largest fish I heard of this week from a local charter boat was only 80+ pounds, but that is still a nice fish! Dark colored lures, small feathers and live bait dropped back on the first jig strike seemed to work very well this week. For some reason, cedar plugs were not the happening item. The action on Tuna on the Sea of Cortez side of the Cape was much slower. Some decent fish were caught off the Gorda Banks by boats working chunk lines and drifting live bait deep, but the action was very sketchy, at best.[/left] [left][/left] [left]DORADO: I think that I am going to be repeating myself a lot in the coming week on the status of the Dorado bite. There are still fish out there, and the best results have been either on the Pacific side at least three miles off shore where the water starts to warm up, or up the Sea of Cortez around and just outside of the Gorda Banks. Frigate bird action was one of the keys, as was being able to find floating debris. Most of the fish found close to shore were in the 12-15 pound class and the fish found a lot further out were larger, with some of them in the 60 pound range. Bright colored lures and live bait were the key. A lot of the fishermen were reporting that many of the Dorado were stuffed with squid, most of it about 12-16 inches long.[/left] [left][/left] [left]WAHOO: There were Wahoo caught this week but the action was slow. There were fish caught on both the Pacific side of the Cape as well as the Cortez side and the action seemed to be best just outside the cool water line. There were quite a few bite-offs on slow trolled live bait and most of the fish that managed to get boated were caught on dark colored Marlin lures. Average size was around 40 pounds, with fish caught to 85+.[/left] [left][/left] [left]IN SHORE: Once again Sierra were the fish of the week! Lots of them showing up and the Pangas as well as cruisers working inshore had a blast. If you were in the right place at the right time there were more than enough fish to keep everyone busy, but the bite pretty much stopped by 8:30 or 9 am. Best lures were small Rapallas 3" to 4" long in bright colors. Live bait worked even better but unless you had a stinger hooked in the tail you went through a lot of bait for very few hook-ups! There were a few Roosters caught as well, but I did not hear of any large ones. The bite was fair on Jack Crevalle and it is starting to get better on Snapper. Best action on the Sierra came from the Pacific side starting right at the arch.[/left] [left][/left]

NOTES: We are still seeing whales out there, as well as lots of porpoise. The water has started to calm down at the end of the week, hopefully the good fishing action will return closer to Cabo. We don’t mind making 20+ mile runs to the fish, but it sure burns the fuel! We just checked with Dan Jacobs at World Publications and he says they have confirmed permits to hold the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament on October 19-23 with the fishing days being the 20-22. Guess the Bisbee Black and Blue is going to have to change their published dates? There is still a lot of time so don’t worry yet, just don’t make any final plans on boat reservations or hotel bookings for the tournaments without contacting the sponsors first. This weeks report was written to the music of my favorite guitarist, Ottmar Leibert with Luna Negra on the 1990 Higher Octave release "Nouveau Flamenco". Get a copy, listen and enjoy! Until next week, tight lines![/font]
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