REPORT #1235 "Below the Border"
Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996
Dennis caught his 'career-best' Baja halibut throwing artificials along the shore.
East Cape
More winter and fewer guests was the story this week as the north winds hampered fishing on several different days. However, on the non-windy days, the billfish action produced consistent striper and sailfish catches for the few who were interested in going out.
Inshore has been a mixture of good days and bad, depending on the wind. On the good days there are roosters, jacks…and a sure sign of winter, the toothy sierra working the schools of sardina along the beach.
Current East Cape Weather http://tiny.cc/EastCapeWeather303
Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico
Cold water continues to plague the offshore fishing with about the only bright light being the limits of dorado hiding in a few warm pockets of water scattered around.
While hopes have been high in the esteros that there would be a repeat of last year's snook snap, it has not materialized so far. There's been plenty of variety with an occasional quality-sized snook or corvina showing up often enough to keep it interesting.
I filmed a "Monster Fish" segment with Dennis Braid of Braid Products recently. He caught his 'career-best' Baja halibut throwing artificials along the shore. It was an interesting trip, and as usual with Dennis, it was a lot of fun. I'll let you know when it will air…Gary Graham
Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150
Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico
By Tuesday of this week, the 80° blue water had moved back in close to the beach with it now being only a short run of about six miles. And the game fish are responding. Francisco, on the super panga Huntress, with his client from France, was making long runs of 25 miles or more early in the week and was able to follow the blue water back to the coast, making no more than 15 mile runs in the last couple of days. He is averaging a hooked striped marlin and four sailfish a day. All fish have been released.
Adolfo, on the panga Dos Hermanos, is also averaging four to five sailfish a day, with Cheva, on the panga Dos Hermanos II, getting three to four sailfish a day, but also had a hooked blue marlin on three consecutive days. Fighting a big blue marlin really cuts into the amount of trolling time to find more sailfish. Adolfo and Cheva’s fish were found between the 6.5 and 15 mile marks.
With Adolfo’s son as my deck hand, Argentine fly fishing client Enrique Amatore and I went down to Puerto Vicente Guerrero for two days of fly fishing. We fished an area new to me, and a long ways south of the Port. But, the boat ride was worth it.
The new spot, about 3/4 of a mile off the beach, has a couple of sea mounts coming to within 25 and 50 feet from the surface. It was incredible. I have never seen bait fish dimpling the surface here on this coast like I saw on our 1st day down there. Huge schools of green jacks, sierras, and pompano were busting bait everywhere. The jack crevalle were averaging 10 to 20 pounds and schools would cruise in and out. Huge roosters, to an estimated 50 pounds, were mixed with the jacks.
With Adolfo Jr. casting the hook-less popper, we brought about 20 jacks to the boat and 8 roosters. Plus, because we were dead in the water the whole time on a sea of glass, the dorado would come over to investigate. We had several legitimate shots at dorado.
Unfortunately, when we went back the next day, the current changed and brought in dirty water. There was no bait, no nothing. We couldn't buy a fish. But, you can bet I will be going back.…Ed Kunze
Current Zihuatanejo Weather http://tiny.cc/zihuatanejo582
Cabo San Lucas
The 80 degree water we have had this week has still provided a few blue and black marlin in the 250-pound range to give anglers a fight, but I did not hear of any that were larger. These fish were caught on the Cortez side around the 1150 and on the outer Gordo Banks. There have been plenty of striped marlin around, but they have not been in the mood to bite. Most of the fish have been on the Pacific side, within five miles of the beach.
Yellowfin tuna are on again, off again, close to shore, and then 30 miles out. There's no way to predict where you would find the tuna this week with the exception of the Inman and Gordo Banks, and even there, they were iffy.
Once again we did not see any large numbers of dorado with a couple of exceptions. A few boats did come in flying multiple flags and after asking the crew what they had done, I found that two of the boats had found a large piece of wood and had a great time loading up with limits of fish that averaged 15 pounds. These were the exceptions though, as most of the boats felt lucky to get one or two fish during a full day trip.
As a result of being on the back side of the moon, the wahoo bite we had been experiencing dropped off quite a bit. There were still fish out there, but not in the numbers we had been seeing for the past two weeks.
Small roosterfish, and occasional yellowtail, some decent sierra and an occasional amberjack rounded up the normal inshore catch this week. A few pangas got into some grouper and snapper, and a few focused on the dorado, but the mainstay was small roosters and sierra. Both sides of the Cape produced, but the sierra were more concentrated on the Pacific side…George and Mary Landrum
Current Cabo Weather http://tiny.cc/cabo191
