Cabo Bite Report
Capt. George Landrum
November 12, 2012
Cabo San Lucas - Saltwater Fishing Report
FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
[email protected]
www.flyhooker.com
http://captgeo.wordpress.com/
Cabo Fish Report
November 5 - 11, 2012
WEATHER: I love this time of the year in Cabo. We get the nice cool evenings when the temperature is right around 80 degrees, mornings with a slight chill with low 70's and daytime where you can warm up a bit in the low 90's. No sweaters needed at night, but no air conditioning either! This week we had mostly sunny days with light clouds for most of the week. The winds were light except on Saturday when they freshened up a bit, but they never got strong.
WATER: On the Cortez side of the Cape this week we were seeing water from the beach out to the 1,000 fathom line showing 82.4 to 84.4 degrees while just past this area the water warmed up to the mid 85 degree range and did touch 86 degrees in a few areas. The water was mostly clean and blue with a few of the area in cooler water showing a touch of green, but nothing easy to notice. Add in the flat water with little wind and no swells to speak of and it was like being on a pool table. On the Pacific side it was 81 to 83 degrees all along the coast line from the beach out past the banks. The water was clean and blue with small swells and almost no wind most days. It did blow a bit on Saturday but not hard enough or long enough to get the swells up, just a bit of chop. UPDATE 11/11/12: The wind yesterday continued to blow the rest of the day and increased over the night. We went to the Pacific side this morning and only made it half way past the lighthouse to the Los Arcos area before turning back. Swells had picked up to 4-6 feet with the wind at 15-20 knots. Boats running the beach made it farther up, avoiding the wind chop and current lines, but I can't imagine that the water conditions off the beach were much better. Wind is supposed to lay down to 8-10 knots tomorrow, and like today from the NNW.
BAIT: Same as last week, Caballito and Mullet could be had at $3 each. Once the water cools a few more degrees there should be a few Mackerel showing up as well. There were Sardinas at $25 a bucket and plenty of them as boats were supplying enough for the Tuna Tournament. You could get frozen horse Bally-hoo at $3 each.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: I heard of no reports I could verify of any Blue or Black Marlin this week, and I spent two days with a friend looking for only those fish while the W.O.N. Tuna tournament was going on. There were some Striped Marlin caught, but almost all were on the Pacific side, close to the beach. A few boats were dropping live bait down halfway to the bottom or all the way to the bottom and getting a few hook-ups, and there were a few fish spotted tailing that were willing to eat a live bait. Just as last week, I estimate that about 20% or fewer of the boats were able to catch a Striped Marlin this week. There were also few Sailfish, though a couple were caught, and they were found on the Cortez side in the warmer water.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: Fish of the week! The only reason they have edged out the Dorado is the number of boats that were targeting them this week. Thursday and Friday were the two fishing days for the Yamaha/Western Outdoor News Tuna Tournament and with 121 teams entered the pressure to find a big fish was heavy. Since practically the only area that has been producing any Yellowfin fish of quality has been the Gordo Banks, my friend Mike of"Renegade Mike" told me it was almost a parking lot with over 70 boats positioned on and around the area on the first day. The pressure was too much for some of the boats on the second day so they left and targeted Dorado and Wahoo instead. The results were impressive with the largest fish caught being 372 pounds! Mike caught the largest Tuna of day one with a #266 and ended up taking second overall along with a fish that would have been fourth place if the money had paid out that far. There were a dozen fish over 200 pounds caught during the tournament, and all but one came from the Gordo area. The tournament has no idea of the numbers of smaller fish but there were plenty of them! Most of these fish were taken by boats that were chunking bonito or chumming with Sardinas, and you were not getting bit if you did not have flouro-carbon leader, the fish were very shy. The only other area that produced Yellowfin was a school on the second day approximately 12 miles to the north of the Golden Gate Bank. I only saw 6 boats working this school, four of them flying kites, but one of the 200+ pound fish was caught from this school.
DORADO: I think the results of the Tuna tournament speak of the Dorado fishing as far as size goes as there were no Dorado weighed over 30 pounds, even with $78,000 U.S. on the line the second day. But there were lot's of them out there! Almost all the action was on the Pacific side between the Los Arcos area all the way to Todo Santos. Fishing within two miles of the beach using drifted or slow trolled live bait, or fishing a spread of lures, every boat that tried was able to limit out on fish that ran from 10 to 20 pounds with a few to 25 pounds. As usual, getting the first one hooked up and leaving it in the water behind the boat resulted in more fish coming in and better catches. With most of the boats on the first day concentrating on Yellowfin the pressure on the Dorado was light, but on the second day of the tournament it picked up a bit. Now that the tournament is over you can expect the pressure on the Dorado to return as they are the base of the charter operations this time of year.
WAHOO: Once again Wahoo action was sporadic with quite a few small fish caught and no really large ones. The action was spread out all over the place with fish being caught around the Punta Gordo area and up off of Todo Santos. Looking for them along the 50 fathom line or closer in resulted in fish that were in the 20 pound class. The largest one weighed in during the Tuna tournament was only #30.4 and ended up taking the $78,000 prize in the Wahoo/Dorado category. My math makes that fish worth $2,565.78 a pound!
INSHORE: There was no change in the inshore fishing report for this week . You can almost consider the Yellowfin, Skipjack and Dorado bite as inshore fishing since the main concentration was in less than 300 feet of water, and since it has been so good, few of the Pangas did any fishing right on the beach. Those that did found a few smaller sized Roosterfish, plenty of Needle-fish, a scattering of Jack Crevalle but not a lot of anything else. I did hear of a few Sierra being caught, but not any large numbers.
FISH RECIPE: Check the blog for this weeks recipe! A really good one for Dorado!
NOTES: The tournaments are now over and it is time to settle in for the season. It appears as if both the Tuna and Dorado may be here for a little while longer, at least for the next month or so. Hopefully the Striped Marlin bite will turn on soon. When we start to see more Mackerel in the bait supplies there should be more Striped Marlin showing. Remember, all I do is fishing (with a bit of golf thrown in) so you get a no non-sense, factual report on our conditions every week, and most of the time I have been on the water a day or two myself. I have had a few questions about how I get my information, and after 13 years here I have an amazing number of phone numbers that I work every week, besides by own experience. Combine the calls I make to Captains, I talk to great numbers of anglers, both clients and non-clients to find out how they did and where they went. This weeks report was written to the music of Brian Flynn once again as I am looking forward to his bands concert this Sunday at the outdoor amphitheater in the new cultural center. (Brian has played with Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, Loverboy, Ralph Dinosaur, The Marshall Tucker Band, Molly Hatchett, Southern Rock Allstars and Guess Who). Looking forward to it! Until next week, tight lines!
Target Species:
billfish, tuna, dorado, wahoo, and inshore species
More Fishing Reports:
