WEATHER: Once again we had partly cloudy skies most of the week. It seems very strange to have this happen so many weeks in a row without having a hurricane threat. These cloudy days have been a result of weather moving in from the mainland of Mexico. What they have brought us has been a slight lowering of temperature and rain in the mountains. Our highs this week were in the mid 90's and our lows got down to 81 degrees!
WATER: Gorda Banks had a 10 degree drop in water temperature this week as on August 31 it was showing 89 degrees at 3pm, on Sept 3rd we had 78 degrees at 3 am. On the Pacific side it seems that the water temperatures have remained at 78-80 degrees since the beginning of September while they were about 4 degrees higher at the end of August. That is how the could cover we have had can affect the surface temperatures! We have had afternoon winds from the northwest on most days and the swells have slowly increased in size since the beginning of the month. As of today we were having 5-7 foot swells reported from the Pacific side and 3-6 feet on the Cortez side.
BAIT: Caballito and Mullet were the baits of the week with no Mackerel being found due to the warm waters. Everything was the normal $3 per bait. There were also some decent Sardinas to the north around Palmilla at $25 a scoop but the size of the swells made getting them an iffy proposition.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Still the best side of the Cape for the Striped Marlin, the Pacific coastline out to 5 miles had scattered tailing fish reported. No large concentrations were found, but there were enough fish out there that almost everyone had a chance to hook up. There were Blue Marlin to be found as well, a few of our clients this week managed to get releases on fish to approximately 250 pounds. Most of the Blue Marlin were found due south and along the Jaime-Golden Ridge. Lures worked well on the Blues while as usual, live bait worked slightly better on the Striped Marlin. I did hear of a couple of small Black Marlin being caught up toward the Punta Gorda area.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: Still on and off, when it is on it is very, very good! Of course you have to go through a day of bad fishing sometimes, but this week most of the days were good days. Almost all the fish for the fleet boats were found to the south and the west. The area due south known locally as the “Herradura” had some nice fish averaging 30 pounds. There were fish to 60 and 70 pounds there as well but the average was around 30. You had to find the porpoise, and had to be one of the early boats, but the fish bit well. Lures were working, cedar plugs and small plastic headed lures in dark colors. The cloud cover helped in the fishing as the Yellowfin stayed up longer. Farther to the north, up in the area of the Golden Gate there were some larger fish, we had one client group that got a very nice one that weighed at 169 pounds. That fish struck a lure as well, but there was a Purse Seiner working the area as well, so who knows how long that group of fish had left.
DORADO: Just like last week anglers were getting as many Dorado as they wanted if they worked the the pacific shoreline north of the Golden Gate. Most of them were small but there were quite a few that were in the 15 pound class. Shark buoys to the south of the Golden Gate held some nice fish as well. We did not have fishing quite as hot and heavy as a few weeks back, but like I said in last weeks report, the average size seems to be increasing.
WAHOO: I did not hear of any Wahoo being caught this week, but I am sure there were a few.
INSHORE: On and off fishing was the word for inshore fishing this week. The swells and afternoon winds kept a lot of the Pangas off the beach and instead they were working a few miles out looking for Dorado and Tuna with an occasional Marlin to get anglers excited.
FISH RECIPE: My recipe has been taking too much space so if you want to see it, check out my wordpress blog a little later in the week, or subscribe to the blog and you will receive an email as soon as I post it. This week I actually will be posting one since we finally got some Tuna to take home, a very nice piece from the 169 pound fish!
NOTES: It was nice to see the Dorado and Yellowfin Tuna show themselves again. After a sparse couple of weeks where you could get some nice fish, but no numbers, anglers were having a lot of fun with numbers of fish. Just a quick reminder, most boats carry some ice, but if you are going after Tuna, make sure there is plenty on board, you may have to purchase more just in case! This week the report was written to the sounds of my dog snoring at my feet and Jack Johnson on the CD player.
Until next week, tight lines!
FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com