Capt. Gary Graham
June 28, 2001
Baja Sur - Saltwater Fishing Report
Sorry for the delay of our Report Southern California Rolling Black outs got us this time.
EAST CAPE, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
Wed., June 27, 2001
TEMPERATURES: High of 95 with a low of 75. Windy Tuesday afternoon and back to flat calm on Wednesday
STRIPED MARLIN – A few boats reporting multiples.
YELLOWFIN TUNA - Still a few.
DORADO – Quite a few smaller fish this week.
ROOSTERFISH - Good.
JACK CREVALLE – Some large ones along the shore.
BARRILLETE OR MEXICAN SKIPJACK – A few in front of La Ribera.
PARGO AND CABRILLA - Fair action this week at Punta Colorada.
.. OFFSHORE: Marlin and more dorado still mostly the smaller fish schooling up a long way aways.
.. INSHORE: The bite on the reef in front of Rancho Leonero has been great. Golden Jack, pompano, pargo and roosters.
.. BEACH: Both beach and pontoon trips continue to get multiple varieties of
species including jack crevalle, roosters, grouper, pompano and pargo.
.. QUICK COMMENT – Inshore and the beach continue to produce the best results with the larger jacks from the beach being the real crowd pleaser. The pompano and Golden Jacks in front of Rancho Leonero are close enough to fish out of a kayak.
Temperatures: 91-degree high; low in the mid 70's. Fair skies and windy in the afternoon.
TUNA – Few reported.
YELLOWTAIL – Still slow.
CORVINA – Try under the bridge on the way into town.
SNOOK – Good catches in Almejas Bay.
HALIBUT – Several of the Boca’s producing fair catches. .
.. QUICK COMMENT - I just returned from another trip to Magdalena Bay and had the opportunity to fish both the northernmost and southernmost portions of the bay and the fishing was great. Lots of grouper, 2-3 spotted bay bass, corvina, snapper near Boca de Santo Domingo on the first day and then we returned to Puerto San Carlos and left by panga the next morning to fish in Alemejas Bay. On the way down we came across three sardine boats working inside the bay in the Marcy Channel. When I returned to East Cape the following email was waiting for me, which explains the increased activity by the sardine boats.
>
> I was surprised to see an article in the La Paz paper about a Korean
> Sardine boat which had been granted a permit to catch 200 tons of sardines
>
> per day and process (can) them on board. The boat will be fishing in the
> Pacific ocean along the southern coast of Baja and is several hundred feet
>
> long according to the article. A processing plant is also planned for
> construction in San Carlos. Neil Shroyer's office was the promoter of
> this
> enterprise. After reading it I called him to ask the details and he
> assured
> me that according with the C.R.I.P. (Centro Regional de Investigaciones
> Pesqueras) there are enough sardines to process 200 tons plus the other
> 200
> tons per day that are already being caught. He said not to worry, but its
>
> hard for me to stop, especially when you think that two hundred tons of
> sardines per day at 200 gms. ea.make an average daily catch of 1,000,000
> fish. Now they think they can take out another 1,000,000 fish per day. I
>
> feel that this is absolutely insane. The sardine being at the bottom of
> the food chain makes it pretty vital to the survival of many species above
>
> it as you know, and it has already been sacked pretty hard.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Chalo
>
> P.S. Gail wants to know how many sardines a tuna eats daily. Also, What
>
> does a marlin eat?
> P.S.S. Neil Shroyer told me that the cannery in San Carlos will employ 40
> persons. The major part of the boat crew is Korean.
>
>
So once again it appears that the Mexican Government has taken a reckless attitude in dealing with the most essential part of the food chain. I had hoped that the new administration would be more sensitive to the importance of this resource.
Anyway, our trip to Almejas was a success and we did very well on smaller snook to six pounds in several different esteros.
