Tuna in cream sauce

Grilled Tuna with Cream Sauce

I know I have been bad about fish recipes on the blog . Had a couple bad experiments and it turned me off.
Well I climbed back on that horse and here is this weeks recipe.
I inherited lots of cookbooks over the years. People leave and they just don’t want to haul them back to the states.
One of these books I was looking through this week was
the Wolfgang Puck Cookbook, printed in 1986. I kept some little strips of paper to mark recipes I wanted to try and knew I could get the ingredients here. The original recipe called for Mahi Mahi, and I had fresh tuna. It also called for small red onions. Would you believe I couldn’t a red onion?
So I have some big green onions growing in the back yard and used those. Delightful.

Enough rambling, here is the recipe.

Grilled Tuna with cream sauce.
This was enough for the 2 of us.

1 lb tuna fillet, slice about 1 inch thick. I had a fillet from a small tuna, I just cut it length wise so we had some nice size steaks.
Avacado oil, olive oil, your favorite.
3 small onions, my green onion bulbs were about 3 inches around.
Sliced about 1/8 thick
Salt, pepper,
fresh Thyme sprig, (that’s in our yard also!) You just want the leaves.
½ cup dry white wine
½ cup heavy cream
¼ cup unsalted butter.
First off you want to marinade your fish for a few hours.
Cover your fillets with oil, and cover with slices of one of the onions. Let sit for 2-3 hours.

Getting started, put some rice on. Get the grill started.
In a sauce pan, a little more oil, when hot, add the rest of the sliced onion.
Saute the onion until just brown and crispy. Stir in the Thyme leaves, add the white wine and reduce by half.

Add the heavy cream and let it reduce a little more.
Add Salt and pepper to taste.
Whisk in the butter last. Use small pats, stir into sauce until almost completely melted, then add another pat, until all butter is melted into the sauce.
Set this aside until tuna is ready.
Salt and pepper your fish and place on the grill. Remember under cooked is better than over cooked, fish will keep on cooking after it’s removed from the grill.

Serve the fish on a bed of rice and spoon the onion sauce over the top. This was sooooo goood. But I guess anything with heavy cream and butter cannot taste bad!

Cabo Fish Report

FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
http://www.flyhooker.com
https://captgeo.wordpress.com/
Cabo Fish Report
Aug 19 – 26, 2012

WEATHER: I cannot believe it! After almost three years of looking out on a dry and dusty brown desert I can finally see green everywhere! The almost 10 inches of rain we received recently has resulted in an almost garden appearance if you decide to wander out into the desert, everything is budding out and in a few more days we should start to see plenty of flowers as well. This time of year is normally when we get our rains, and after the recent delivery we have been expecting more almost constantly as the dark clouds continues to move in every few days. At least the rain is getting dumped up in the mountains, but there is a possibility of more coming our way in the next month and a half. For this week out highs have been in the low 90’s and the lows in the low to mid 80’s with the humidity between 72 and 84 percent, and mostly cloudy skies.
WATER: Surface conditions have been great with swells at 2-5 feet on the Pacific side and 1-3 feet on the Cortez side of the Cape. On the Pacific side the water temperatures have been running between 81 and 84 degrees, on the Cortez side it has been pretty evenly 84 degrees this week. A lot of this has to do with the cloud cover we are experiencing, the water a few weeks ago was several degrees warmer across the board. One nice thin the rain did for us was wash quite a bit of debris out of the arroyos and into the ocean, there has been decent amounts of floating debris to work for the past week, but that has also meant keeping a sharp eye out for debris large enough to damage the props or the hull. Sometimes these objects are mostly submerged, so if you do spot them the likelihood of them holding bait is very good.
BAIT: Caballito and Mullet were available at the normal $3 per bait and you could get them if you were out early, many boats were unable to get bait and had to settle for frozen horse ballyhoo at $3 each. I heard reports that there were a few Sardianas available in the San Jose area, but you had to know someone and pay well for them.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Not surprisingly the numbers of Sailfish that have been caught this past week were much higher than normal, perhaps due to the continuing warm water and strong current flow. When the water is this temperature the numbers of Striped Marlin that we see drop off quite a bit from what we see when the water is in the mid 70’s, but there are always a few around. This week they were a bit scarce, but there were still some found. Blue and Black Marlin really like this temperature so we have been seeing quite a few Blue Marlin appearing in the lure spreads, especially when working the schools of football size Yellowfin Tuna. There has been fairly good success rates on these fish, with most of them under 300 pounds and being released (thank goodness!). Good success rates don’t necessarily mean everyone is hooking up, just that the boats that are getting hooked up are not losing so many. Even with the water this warm and the large numbers of Skipjack and Bonito we are seeing, I have heard of very few Black Marlin being caught. This is a bit unusual since the fishing grounds have been packed with the perfect baits.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: Fish of the week without a doubt as almost every boat that went out came in with near limits of Yellowfin. All the fish were found associated with Porpoise and there were actually a few schools found. Like I said, most of the fish were footballs between 8 and 20 pounds but there were a few larger fish caught as well. One boat came in last Sunday afternoon with a nice Tuna that weighed in at 205 pounds, way to go Mike! A few schooling fish have been caught as well, these are fish in the 30 to 70 pound class, but the numbers of them have been small. Speaking of small, most of the schooling fish were caught on that time honored Football Tuna lure, the three inch pink hootchie trolled about 50 to 80 feet behind the boat and worked steadily with a jerking motion. I was out last Sunday and every Tuna we caught was loaded with small squid between three and five inches long. The Tuna have been scattered on both sides of the Ca, from the lighthouse on the Pacific side to the area offshore of El Tule on the Cortez side. It looked like perfect water around the San Jaime Bank last weekend and we worked it hard, but saw nothing out there until we came back to the starting area about five miles off of the lighthouse.

DORADO: I really expected the debris in the water to attract and concentrate the Dorado this past week and was surprised when the reports came in that these great fighting and eating fish were scarce. A number of smaller fish to 10 pounds were being found inshore, but not in any concentration or numbers, and there were a few larger fish being found offshore. When boats were finding floating debris and pulled up to it, only a few pieces held Dorado, and not in any great numbers. I am not sure of the reason for this, it runs completely counter to what is normal and expected this time of year.
INSHORE: Roosterfish numbers were way down this past week due to the near-shore dirty water after the passing of the rain, but that was expected. Strong currents have effected the bottom fishing as well so the numbers of Grouper and Snapper as well as Amberjack were also off. Most of the Pangas have been going a bit offshore looking for the football Tuna and have been doing well on them.
FISH RECIPE: Check the blog for this weeks recipe!
NOTES: Beach time! Tawny just came up and put her head on my lap and let me know that I am taking too long, she really needs to get into the water and swim for a while. It looks as if the fishing is picking up a bit, as soon as the currents slow it should get even better. The desert is green and starting to bloom, the water is clean again as are the streets. This weeks report was written to the music of Hayes Carll on his album “Little Rock”. For those of you who like country, check him out! Until next week, tight lines!

Friday after the rain, fishing was hot!

Craig Carbone with a quick picture before release!

below is a few pictures I grabbed from Facebook.  Also here is a link to a report from Aztec TV

http://www.aztecanoticias.com.mx/capitulos/estados-y-df/123283/tormenta-deja-severos-da%C3%83%C2%B1os-en-bcs

Aug 2012 Storm

Cabo Fish Report

FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
http://www.flyhooker.com
https://captgeo.wordpress.com/
Cabo Fish Report
Aug 13 – 18, 2012

WEATHER: We finally got some rain, after almost three years with just an occasional sprinkle. A lot of folks thought that the weather was a result of Hurricane Hector, but Hector passed well to the southwest of us and had no effect at all other than some swells. This rain was a result of a large area of weather moving in over us from the east, coming in off the Mexican mainland, and slowly passing across our area. Here at the house we measured 8 ½ inches, out at Cabo Real Golf Course there was just under 10 inches of rain. What was nice for us is that all this water did not come down in just one day, as often happens during a hurricane, instead it started off slow and allowed the soil to absorb a lot of moisture, great for the plants and helping to fill the aquafier. The rain started on Tuesday, just a ¼ inch every few hours, then came heavy on Wednesday morning, light showers after that, and then really dumping on Thursday morning. On Thursday morning I measured 3 inches at 10 AM, starting at midnight with most of the rain early. As a result there was massive amounts of flooding in the low areas and in areas up to 2 feet of sand across roads or built up at intersection. You can go on line and do a search, there are a lot of pictures posted out there. Our highs for the week after the storm were in the high 90’s with high humidity as well, our lows were in the mid 80’s. At the end of the week the skies cleared and the rain was over, but the roads continue to be cleaned up. We were all happy at the quick response by the city in getting the main roads cleared so fast. Expect to see a lot of greenery in the next few weeks as the desert shows it’s appreciation by getting everything in bloom! It looks as if we may get a bit more in the middle of the coming week as well as another cloud layer is moving our way.
WATER: Hector did deliver the surf we expected and it happened to almost coincide with our wet weather. Swells to 9 feet were experienced on Wednesday but it died off quickly. The Port Captain closed the port to small vessels such as Pangas and water taxis for two days but the larger boats were still able to go out. Heavy rain and the swells did not make for great fun, but the fishing was pretty good. One thing all the rain did was dirty the water for up to 5 miles offshore as the arroyos filled with water and took massive amounts of sand and silt to the ocean. Farther out it was still blue, but we didn’t really get any decent shots of water temperature until the end of the week. As of today, it appears that the water on both sides of the Cape are between 83 and 85 degrees with no real temperature break anywhere.
BAIT: Caballito and Mullet were available at the normal $3 per bait and you could get them if you were out early, many boats were unable to get bait and had to settle for frozen horse ballyhoo at $3 each.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: Striped Marlin, Sailfish and Blue Marlin continue to excite anglers when they show up, and they have been doing that on a regular basis. The action has been spread out but most of the boats this week were finding the fish on the Pacific side as the attempted to avoid the swells coming from the east. My guess is that 40% of the anglers looking for a Marlin were able to hook up and quite a few that didn’t care hooked up as well. The Striped Marlin were the most common billfish this week with Sailfish coming in a close second. The Blue Marlin were scattered out but there were enough of them caught to get your anticipation up, and even a small Blue Marlin is a heck of a fight. Live bait was the key to the Striped Marlin and Sailfish bite and once again lures accounted for most of the Blue Marlin. I still haven’t heard of any Black Marlin in the past week, and with the inshore water dirty we probably won’t for the nest week as well.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: It was nice to see the catch get better on Yellowfin Tuna this week, and they were found all over the place, just no really big ones. One friend did well fishing outside the 1150 and caught a few fish in the 70 pound class and a lot of smaller fish, but most of the anglers were happy to do well on fish averaging 12-15 pounds. Find the Dolphin and birds and you found the fish. Closer to home there were small pods of Dolphin with no birds but they still held plenty of football sized fish, we will have to see what happens this coming week as this is the time of year we normally start to get the big ones come in.

DORADO: Once again fish of the week, but there were not as many as last week, probably due to the weather and dirty inshore water. Most boats were able to get several for their clients and some of them were large fish over 30 pounds, but the average was 12 pounds and there were a lot of the little slipper sized once as well. I expect it to be even easier to find them this coming week as the debris washed into the ocean by all our rain starts to attract chains of food. Due south and along the Pacific side were the areas most of the boats worked as they were the more protected areas to fish, avoiding the swells and rain in the face until the last couple of miles coming home.
INSHORE: Roosterfish numbers were down once again and I don’t really expect them to go back up anytime soon with the conditions of the inshore water. Most of the Pangas that fished early in the week were able to do all right on Amberjack and Red Snapper with a few other species tossed in the mix but when the rain started in earnest the inshore bite went away. At the end of the week the Pangas were venturing offshore for Tuna and Dorado due to the dirty water inshore. Also, lest I forget to mention it, one of our clients, Craig, fished from the shore at Migraino Beach in the surf and caught and released a beautiful 50 pound Roosterfish, but that was before the rain really kicked in and the water dirtied up. Way to go Craig! Oh, he caught a Striped Marlin as well when he went offshore, lucky guy!
FISH RECIPE: Check the blog for this weeks recipe! I know I’m slacking on this. I have a pile right next to me.
NOTES: Time for the Sunday trip to the beach with the dog. I don’t think I am going in the water yet, I still think it’s too dirty inshore but the pup doesn’t seem to mind! This weeks report was written to the music of Dick Dale, that master of the Fender Stratocaster and early surf music legend. Until next week, tight lines!

Cabo Fish Report

FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
http://www.flyhooker.com
https://captgeo.wordpress.com/
Cabo Fish Report
Aug 6 – 12, 2012

WEATHER: Well, I’m back from my delivery to Oxnard (great trip Carl!) and while it was hot up there, around 100 degrees, I came home to just as hot or a bit more at 103 degrees and a lot more humidity, 80% yesterday! Mary tells me it has been this way all week long, and yesterday we had some cloud cover move in. It’s 7 AM now and the reading on the back porch is 83 degrees and 85% humidity! The lows have been in the mid 80’s, warm enough that we have had the A/C unit on at night in order to sleep. It appears that the week was mostly sunny and warm, but we might be getting some more cloud cover a bit later in the week along with a bit of wind and larger swells. This will be due to tropical storm Hector passing to the southwest of us. As of today Hector is 480 kilometers to the south with winds extending out 240 kilometers and moving to the WNW with high expectations of moving more to the west shortly. This means that we will not be getting high winds, but probably some decent swells with a few gusts.
WATER: On the Cortez side of the Cape the water has been much warmer at 87-89 degrees, if you go up to the East Cape area it warms to 89-90 degrees. On the Pacific side it is a bit cooler at 81-83 degrees with the cooler water on the inside of the San Jaime and the Golden Gate Banks. This cooler water is a bit off-color, but not enough to really mess with the fishing. Checking the charts I can see 85 degree water out to the southwest that appears to be almost purple, it is so clear. The swells have been small for most of the week, but right at the beginning there were some giant ones coming in where they were actually coming into the beach-side bars and restaraunts. There were quite a few folks on the plane down who were coming in the expectation that Hector was going to deliver those same type of swells so they could catch some big surf.
BAIT: Caballito and Mullet were available at the normal $3 per bait and you could get them if you were out early, many boats were unable to get bait and had to settle for frozen horse ballyhoo at $3 each.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: The Striped Marlin are still out there and there appears to be more Sailfish than we normally have, both of these have been the mainstay of the billfishing this past week. The majority of the Striped Marlin have been found from due south of the Cape to the Pacific side inside the banks, in the slightly cooler water. Most of the Sailfish have been found due south and to the east in the Sea of Cortez in the slightly warmer water, but of course there have been both species found in both areas, it’s just that the chances to get any particular species improves a bit in certain area. As far as the larger Billfish go, there have been a few Blue Marlin caught and many more lost this week, some of the fish that have been reported as lost were also reported as being well over 300 pounds (imagine that, huh?) but a few of the reports were made by skipper I have a lot of faith in. I did not hear anyone talk about getting any Black Marlin this week, so while there may have been a few, they were not large. Live bait was the most common method of getting the Striped Marlin and Sailfish, with the bait being thrown in front of sleeping fish or dropped back to fish appearing in the lure pattern. The Blues were all reported as being lure fish.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: Not much to say here, there are still a few around but it appears that the purse seiners got most of the schools that were packed up around the Golden Gate Bank. On my delivery north we arrived at the Golden gate well past the charter boats leaving the area and we spotted two seiners pursing their nets about 6 miles to the northwest of the bank. Arriving in the area we spotted not birds or Dolphin but boxed the area for a while. Eventually we spotted tuns breaking the surface while chasing small baits and ended up limiting out on fish from 10 to 20 pounds. After about 90 minutes and the onset of dark we spotted two more seiners arriving from the north, and on radar spotted one more much farther to the north heading down. There went the tuna, sigh. Hopefully it won’t be long before more show up. On the Cortez side there have been some tuna of about the same size found on the northern banks past Punta Gorda but it has been reported as an early bite because unless you get Sardinas (only a limited number available early) it is just an exercise in frustration.

DORADO: Definitely the fish of the week, Dorado have been keeping anglers happy with good numbers of fish from 8 to 15 pounds as well as enough larger fish to 30 pounds to test their skill. A few fish to 50 pounds have been reported as well. Most of the smaller fish have been taken close to shore while the larger ones have been a bit farther offshore. As usual, working the Frigate birds, if you can find the swooping down, has offered the best opportunity for good catches, but trolling brightly colored lures and keeping the first fish hooked up in the water has also worked well for multiple hook-ups. The Pacific side of the Cape appears to be producing more fish that the Cortez side, but that can change at any time.
INSHORE: The numbers of Roosterfish being found has dropped off a bit this week, perhaps due to the large swells at the beginning of the week. There is still a decent bite for Amberjack and a few Grouper. If you leave early there is also the possibility of getting a few red snapper. Most of the Pangas have been working off the beach fishing for Dorado as they have been very consistent.
FISH RECIPE: Check the blog for this weeks recipe! I know I’m slacking on this. I have a pile right next to me.
NOTES: Off to the beach once again, and glad to go. I need to get into the water! My music for the week was once again Adele off of the 21 album. Until next week, tight lines!

July 30 – Aug 5

FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
http://www.flyhooker.com
https://captgeo.wordpress.com/
Cabo Fish Report
July 31 – Aug 5th, 2012

WEATHER: It’s Sunday morning, George is off fishing somewhere between Turtle Bay and Ensenada. So you are stuck with my short and sweet fishing report. Our high the end of this week was a sweltering 107 degrees, stay close to a fan and or AC! For me the lows are what temperature it is at 5:30AM when heading to the marina. It’s been a steady 84 degreees. There is a nice afternoon wind, which helps a bit.
WATER:The Sea of Cortez has beautiful blue waters 88-90 degrees. With seas in the 1-3 ft range. The Pacific side on the other side is a bit cooler 81 -86 degrees. The wind chop on the Pacific side is keep the inshore waters green. There is a daily search to find where the blue water starts form a mile offshore to 15 miles off shore.The banks have been blue and holding fish
BAIT: Caballito and Mullet were available at the normal $3 per bait and you could get them if you were out early, many boats were unable to get bait and had to settle for frozen horse ballyhoo at $3 each.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: here is where I get a little light on the report! George will be home soon! The blues are in! Being caught on a daily basis. I didn’t hear of any new larger ones this week, hopefully that is because they were released! Most of the marlin catch of course is still the Striped Marlin we have all year round. With the Dorado, there has been a score of Sailfish again this year.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: Well the story of the week this week Here they are there they go. The Purse seiners arrive in force this week and tuna are gone. Upset with this? Please take a few minutes to let the Mexican Government what you think about the Purse Seiners repeatedly fishing in our waters. Please no cussing and swearing, that won’t solve anything. English replies are accepted.
http://www.inapesca.gob.mx/portal/tramites-y-servicios/quejas-y-denuncias
Also, try dropping an email to Senator Luis Coppola, who is said to be sympathetic to Cabo fishermen. luis.coppola luis.coppola@pan.senado.gob.mx. Thanks!!!

DORADO: Lots of dorado this week and the Sailfish that come with them. They ranged from way too small to some really nice 50 lb bulls! Since the tuna are gone for now, this was dinner of the week.
INSHORE: Amberjack, Roosterfish and a few Grouper were pretty much the inshore action this week. For anglers fishing fly gear or light tackle there was a good bite on nice sized Skipjack as well. This has not changed, although green in places the roosterfish bite remains strong.
FISH RECIPE: Check the blog for this weeks recipe! I know I’m slacking on this. I have a pile right next to me.
NOTES: Written to the sounds of Tawny snoring at my feet, waiting patiently for her Sunday morning beach romp. Just need to hope no one will throw us out! More next week when George gets back.

Purse Seiners

dangerous fishing when these large net boats want you out of their way

Purse Seiners.

Purse seiner waiting to scoop up the tuna

Purse Seiners

Well they are back. What can you do? Please take a few minutes to let the Mexican Government what you think about the Purse Seiners repeatedly fishing in our waters. Please no cussing and swearing, that won’t solve anything.
http://www.inapesca.gob.mx/portal/tramites-y-servicios/quejas-y-denuncias
English replies are accepted.