Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Capt. George Landrum
May 23, 2005
Cabo San Lucas - Saltwater Fishing Report
Cabo Bite Report
Capt. George Landrum
Fly Hooker Sportfishing
[email protected]
www.flyhooker.com
CABO SAN LUCAS FISH REPORT MAY 16-22, 2005
WEATHER: My how things change every week! This week we had night time lows in the high 60’s here in town, into the mid 50’s out on the Pacific side beaches. Our daytime highs were in the mid 80’s and for most of the week it was windy. The winds were mostly from the north-west but late in the week shifted and came from the southwest. No rain and only partly cloudy all week long.
WATER: The surface conditions were almost a repeat of last week as we did have the continued NW winds causing very rough conditions on the Pacific side of the Cape, so rough that few, if any, boats tried to fish past the lighthouse. On the Cortez side the conditions were much better if you got past the Chileno area; the way the winds blew it was still lumpy to the southeast of the cape. Up in the Punta Gorda and Gorda Banks area it was almost glass-like with just a bit of a bump and no wind chop. Having the water between 63 and 67 degrees on the Pacific side was not a problem since the conditions were so rough. At the start of the week we had the temperature break that ran from the Cape to the SSW, as the week continued and the California current kept the cold water flowing, we had an intrusion just offshore where a finger of the cold water worked it’s way around the Cape in a band from just outside the 95 spot to up around the 1150 spot and out for around five miles. This pushed the warmer water in to the coast and up toward the Punta Gorda area.
BAIT: Once again we had a difficult time getting local bait this week. At the end of last week the large seiner that supplies the Sol mar fleet and long range boats with bait arrived with a load of Mackerel and it was a good thing, as the local bait supply almost dried up. At the end of the week those supplies were almost gone as well and many boats that left a bit late could not get bait. Even with the lack of supplies the price remained the same with both Mackerel and Caballito at the usual $2 per bait. A few boats also had small jacks, around two pounds each and some big silvery sided fish that looked like jacks but nothing likes to eat. Well, something is better than nothing I guess, but that is why I have a supply of frozen bait on board!
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Wow, it’s amazing, but this weeks report on Marlin is almost a repeat of last week’s report, almost a prediction, if you will. This week we had the 2005 IGFA/Rolex Offshore Championship Tournament here and it was an all-release format with over 70 teams from around the world. Four days of fishing resulted in over 500 Striped Marlin released. That works out to an average for two fish per boat per day, which was the average I reported last week. The top boat for any one day had 11 releases and many of them had three or four with a couple of boats having seven or eight. Of course a few boats only had one release for four days, but that fishing. The areas the fish were caught remained the same as last week with the biggest concentration just off shore up at Punta Gorda, around the 50-100 fathom line. The difference from last week was that this week the big concentration of Mackerel schools were gone; there were just small bait balls in the area so it was had to catch live bait. One boat did get a Blue Marlin estimated at #250 pounds and released it after a two hour fight on #30 test line. Unfortunately the bite died off the day after the tournament ended. We were still seeing Marlin all over the place but they were not hungry. Hopefully they will start biting again soon.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: This is a repeat of last week’s section. Once again there were football sized fish showing up under the Dolphin, but not every pod held fish and not all the fish found would bite. When they did it was not uncommon to limit out on Tuna in the 10-25 pound range. Most of the fish were found near the temperature break south of the cape about 25 miles, where the water was a bit bumpy. There were nice fish holding on the Gorda Banks as well, but they were very picky fish. Nice Yellowfin from 30 to 100 pounds could be seen busting the water but the only anglers having any luck on them were the Panga fishermen out of San Jose who were there at gray light in the morning and using Sardinas for bait on #60 fluorocarbon leader.
DORADO: Very few Dorado this week and they were not very large. With 70 tournament boats fishing four days, on day one only 8 Dorado were caught, and most of them were less than 10 pounds. We should see more action as the water continues to warm.
WAHOO: No change from last week’s report. Wahoo were out there this week and there were still a number of them caught out at Punta Gorda and around the inner Gorda Banks and the Red Hill area. A few of the fish caught went to 80 pounds and there were a lot of surprised anglers when they checked lures and found that there was nothing at the leader, a Wahoo had sliced through the leader and taken the lure without them even noticing. Dark colored lures in Petrelero and Green/Black seemed to be a favorite.
INSHORE: Mixed action on Roosterfish, small Dorado, Skipjack Tuna, Jack Crevalle and a few Sierra, with an occasional nice sized Grouper tossed in. I saw a couple of Grouper in the 60-80 pound class that were taken this week, one on a slab yo-yo’d in 80’ of water and the other on a live bait at around the same depth. Almost all the action was on the Sea of Cortez side since the Pacific was so rough and cold.
NOTES: This week’s report was written to the music of Blue Oyster Cult on their self titled 1972 debut album “Blue Oyster Cult”, just a bit before their full “rock” image music. Until next week, enjoy the music of the world and have “Tight Lines” whenever you get out!
More Fishing Reports:
