Cabo San Lucas
Overall Catch Success Rate, All Species Combined 93.22%
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Billfish Catch Success Rate, Billfish, 74.58%% Dorado 25.42% Tuna 23.73% Other Species 30.51%
April Fool’s Day has faded into oblivion, leaving behind spring-like weather with sea temps in the low 70s and calm seas that seemed to have settled in. As we mentioned in our last report, the striped marlin reappeared, and “La Chingona” released seven at the infamous Punta Gordo Bank, giving the rest of the Pisces fleet something to shoot for.
As it turned out, the action was not only restricted to marlin, nor to just one of the banks, but to Faro, Pedregal, and Afuera del Cerro, which produced a variety of species, including striped marlin, silky shark, skipjack, dorado, sierra, red snapper, and jack crevalle. … Pisces Sportfishing Fleet
San Jose
Things have been quiet around our marina area. Even though we still had a good number of charters go out, we can tell the slow season is beginning to settle in. The weather is starting to feel much warmer, and we expect temperatures in the mid-80s next week.
We have been surprised to see the larger number of yellowfin caught. Monday was the most productive day of the week, and in addition, we experienced the solar eclipse while out on the water. One of our boats came in early with ten nice-sized yellowfin that day, the biggest weighed 75 pounds. This unexpected bite was at San Luis Bank and the tuna were caught with live and dead sardina. Tuesday and Wednesday were also good days for catching tuna, though the days were windy. The bite slowed down again throughout the weekend. However, we are still seeing a handful at the fillet station and we continue to see tuna that weighs over 80 pounds daily. The biggest one this week was a 145-pounder caught on a dead sardina. A few Captains reported hooking larger tuna on live skipjack, though they could not land them after long battles. Most of the bigger tuna caught this week came from San Luis. A handful of smaller fish came from Iman Bank.
We continue to see wahoo while drifting sardina for tuna. A few boats have been lucky to catch them on sardina and circle hooks. Most of these wahoo are averaging 15 to 20 pounds. Many of our Captains believe the wahoo bite could be good earlier in the morning with Rapalas and rigged ballyhoo. We have not been targeting wahoo as we focus most of our time on the yellowfin bite.
A few boats reported finding some dorado around floating buoys towards the end of the week while looking for marlin 10 to 15 miles out. These boats did great as they caught double digits with a few 30+ pounders in the mix.
Towards the end of the week, the fleet reported good striped marlin action at Iman while drifting sardina for tuna. We continue to catch a good mix of grouper, snapper, and amberjack throughout the rock piles in Iman, La Fortuna, and Cardon. Surprisingly, we also had one yellowtail weighing almost 20 pounds. Inshore action remains consistent with Sierra (Spanish mackerel) and a few nicer roosterfish. We saw a few larger roosters, with most of them averaging from 15 to 25 pounds. … Brian Brictson/Gordo Banks Pangas
East Cape
We had windy conditions early in the week, keeping most everyone off the water. By midweek, we experienced cool mornings warming up to pleasant temperatures, and we caught the first tuna of the year. The tuna were located at the Tuna Slides just north of town and we found yellowfin tuna, and lots of skip jack.
The anglers lucky enough to hook tuna instead of skip jack were rewarded with nice-sized tuna – most between 40 and 70 pounds. You had to be there early because by 8 a.m. yesterday, there were already 40 boats in the area.
We also fished for roosterfish and had great action. Fishing is getting better, and we are seeing more roosters daily.
Our best fishing was to our North in the canyon, but we also had good action closer to home, from La Ribera to the lighthouse. Most of the roosters we encountered were offshore somewhat in the deeper water. There were a few fish closer to shore, but our best action was a little farther out in about 80 feet of water. It’s springtime here, and things are heating up. … Jeff de Brown, Reel Baja
La Paz – Las Arenas/ Muertos Bay/ Suenos Bay
Pump the brakes!
Despite my optimism over the last several fishing reports, the bite still isn’t ready to go full speed. I kept warning that the winds would be coming back and it has gotten breezy again. It’s not enough to blow folks off the water, like the previous months, but enough to make it choppy and difficult to fish!
We had to cancel two fishing trips and a snorkel trip because of the rough weather, and the fish weren’t exactly cooperative either.
Was it the weather? Was it the atmospheric changes caused by the eclipse? Maybe the combination of the two? I won’t discount that any of those could have had a significant effect on things. I mean, the moon normally affects tides and currents. News reports during the eclipse talked about how the zoo animals behaved –confused and agitated.
So, maybe the eclipse affected the fish, too. Who knows? I don’t think it helped!
Not only were the counts down compared to previous weeks but the variety was also reduced.
We did get some nice dorado, the largest of the season so far, plus a few smaller roosterfish, plus pargo, cabrilla, snapper, jack and bonito. And some large Sierra. But not many, and that was kinda it!
Things will change. I am just being honest. We’re going to see more winds, but it’ll get better. It always does. The next few days after you have read this, the forecast will call for diminished winds.
In addition to some excellent quality yellowtail to about 25 pounds, the big pompano are still around, and it’s unusual to be getting pompano like this so early in the season, for sure, I’ve never seen so many pompano of this size! The fish are close to the beaches at the drop-offs.
In those same areas, the variety has been incredible – snapper, three species of pargo (pargo liso, barred pargo, dog-tooth snapper), cabrilla, Sierra, jack crevalle, bonito, skipjack, – and yes, – even the occasional early roosterfish, too! It is just fun, live bait and jig fishing when you don’t know what’s going to bite!
And even more remarkable, most of the fishing is closer to shore without having to go very far, even if the winds are kicking in. … Tailhunter Sportfishing
