REPORT #1246 "Below the Border"
Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:
If you are in the neighborhood drop by and see me. I will be conducting a Baja seminar at the Fly Fishing Show in Pleasanton on February 25th @ 12:00 and 2:45 pm and 26th @ 3:30 pm. http://www.flyfishingshow.com/Programs_ ... __Ple.html
East Cape
Color this report warm and yellow! First the wind quit for a few days and simultaneously daytime temperatures shot up. Those encouraging events were enough to convince a few locals and visitors alike to go fishing. But the huge surprise was that the mossback yellowtail were found. Fortunately they were spread out along the shore from Bahia los Sueños to Punta Arena preventing the local illegal netters to locate them and wipe them out..not a wide open bite but several fish over forty pounds were reported.
In addition to the yellows, pargo and sierra were added to the mix. Seems like the biggest problem was locating a bait fisherman willing to spend the entire night catching enough to satisfy the fleets' need for larger bait.
The fate of how long the improved conditions will continue is in the hands of the north wind gods; they will still call the shots for a couple of months more.
Current East Cape Weather http://tiny.cc/EastCapeWeather303
Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico
Puerto San Carlos and Lopez Mateos are reporting good numbers of whales with more arriving every day. Meanwhile weather has improved but the pesky wind returned causing some bumpy afternoon rides for the whale lookers.
On the fishing front few anglers…make that none that we heard about bothered to compete with the whale watching or endure the windswept bay.
Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150
Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico
For this week the clean water starts about 6 miles off the beach, on out to about the 1,000 fathom curve, and then here is a large band of greenish water. This band of cooler water is pushing down from the north.
And, as I predicted last week, the tuna and marlin are coming with the cooler water. With most of the fishing taking place between the 16 to 22 mile marks, the yellowfin tuna and striped marlin are showing up in decent numbers this week, but not many sailfish are being caught. The tuna are on the small side, from 12 to 15 pounds, but they are in large numbers. And, they are hungry, which can present a bit of problem like one small cruiser encountered: Including the captain and deckhand, with two clients, there were 4 people on board when all 5 rods went down. It was a bit interesting for a while on that boat.
Most captains are reporting a couple of strikes by sailfish, but they are not very aggressive and are averaging only 1 hooked sail a day. The striped marlin, liking the cooler water more, are more certain for the hookup.
Long time visitor to Zihuatanejo, John Torres fished a few days with Adan on the panga Gitana II. On conventional gear they took tuna one day, 2 sailfish and a striped marlin the next, and yesterday (Wed.) John got a very nice dorado on the fly rod, and missed a sailfish.
Adolfo, on the panga Dos Hermanos II, told me this morning on the pier there are lots of sierra and medium sized jack crevalle inshore, and got into some large jacks near the White Rocks yesterday.
Fly fishing client Roy O'Shaughnessy, of Vancouver, B.C. went down to Puerto Vicente Guerrero with me and Adolfo’s son as my deck hand, and we actually teased three nice roosters to the boat, but failed to get a hookup. We also raised a lot of medium sized jacks… Ed Kunze
Current Zihuatanejo Weather http://tiny.cc/zihuatanejo582
Cabo San Lucas
Well, I don't know if it's because of the full moon, but there seems to be a few more marlin biting. We had clients that were seeing fish every day, and hooking up, but only about half of those were making it to the boat for a release. Our best day for marlin recently was two fish released for two hooked up. One was a very decent estimated 160-pound striped marlin, the other the usual 110-pound. Both fish were caught on slow trolled dead bait, and both were within 10 miles of the lighthouse on the Pacific side. This area seems to have had the majority of fish spotted, but they are still not very hungry. A few swordfish were seen on the surface as well, but boats trying to drop bait down for them were having an issue with strong sub-surface currents and could not get the baits deep enough; they found some thresher sharks instead. There were a large number of juvenile mako sharks out there jumping and flipping out of the water…most in the 15 to 40 pound class.
If you were in the right place at the right time, yellowfin tuna fishing has been decent. The problem was being in the right place at the right time. A lot of boats were able to find porpoise that were holding great meter marks of tuna, but they were not able to get a bite to save their lives. Some of these pods of fish were within a few miles of the beach, while others were over 30+ miles offshore. There seemed to be a decent bite to the north…off of San Jose on the Sea of Cortez, and some were a decent 30 pounds, but for the most part the fish were footballs of 10 to 18 pounds, and a decent catch was a few fish per boat.
There were a few more dorado flags, but almost all very small fish…less than six pounds. They were caught by boats working inshore for sierra. We saw a large number of these small fish leave the docks in bags being carried by the crews.
It seems as if the sierra have moved up the Pacific coast a bit. The same situation occurred for the yellowtail as the bite dropped off as they moved around. Right place, right time and fish that averaged from 15 pounds to 30 pounds; if you were not lucky then your wrists and arms hurt from yo-yo'ing for hours on small spots of fish. A few nice pargo and other snapper were caught in the rocks along with a scattering of other species such as needlefish, bonito and grouper. The best live baits were sardina for the sierra, rigged on a very light bite wire, and caballito for the pargo and grouper..…George and Mary Landrum
Current Cabo Weather http://tiny.cc/cabo191
