Cabo Fish Report for July 14 – 28, 2015

FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING

Captain George Landrum

gmlandrum@hotmail.com www.flyhooker.com https://captgeo.wordpress.com/

Cabo Fish Report

July 14 – 28, 2015

SYNOPSIS: Blue Marlin are out there and biting as well as some decent Striped Marlin, Sailfish are making an appearance due to the warm water, some small Yellowfin Tuna with a few cows in the mix, small Dorado (except one!) and a few Wahoo.

WEATHER: We were very lucky with Hurricane Dolores as she stayed quite a way offshore, bringing us some cloud cover, a few light rains and some really big swells. Once she had passed and the skies settled down we had partly cloudy skies with the low temperatures being in the low 80’s and the highs just pushing the 100 degree mark. The passing of Dolores brought with it a relief from the humidity, and that lasted three or four days. At the beginning of this week the humidity picked up and over this weekend we had storm clouds move in from an area of light circulation over the mainland. The cloud brought rain, lightning and thunder to our area. While most of the rain stayed in the mountains, we did see some strong rain locally on Sunday. One yacht was struck by lightning while pulling anchor in Chileno Bay at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon, no one was hurt although they were knocked down, but the boats electronics were fried. As I write this the temperature is hovering around 88 degrees with bearable humidity.

WATER: Hurricane Dolores brought 5 meter surf to most of the exposed beaches and took away a lot of sand, but with little rainfall the arroyos did not deliver any debris to the ocean. Once those swells tapered off we were back to normal with 3-6 foot swells on the Pacific side and 1-4 feet elsewhere. Water temperatures have climbed in our area over the past several weeks as we are seeing the Pacific side with water at 82 degrees while water due south and toward San Jose has been higher, reaching 88 degrees in many areas. The currents have been from the north on the Cortez side and strong to the south along the beach on the Pacific side while the area between San Jose and Cabo showed fairly weak currents running east to west. We have had good blue water in almost all areas that were fished.

BAIT: Bait this week was almost exclusively Caballito (goggle eyed scad) with a few misc. kinds in the mix like Lady-fish and a few Moon fish. The normal $3 per bait and there was frozen ballyhoo at the same price.

FISHING:

BILLFISH: The Blue Marlin have shown up during the past two weeks and I think the chances of hooking up with one are as high as 25% for anglers willing to put in the time and effort in the right areas. As always with Blue Marlin, working the current edges, be it far offshore where two directions collide or on the leeward side of high spots and along canyon edges resulted in better odds than just trolling blindly along with your fingers crossed. The Striped Marlin have not gone away, but there are fewer of them out there than prior to the Hurricane. The angers odds of hooking up to a Striped Marlin I would estimate at around 30%, perhaps a bit more than that. Often in the past two weeks what was at first thought to be a small Striped Marlin turned out to be a Sailfish. Since these small billfish often travel in small packs, it was even odds of getting multiple strikes if these fish showed up.

YELLOWFIN TUNA: I have seen quite a few large 150#+ Yellowfin hit the docks in the past two weeks. The bite on these cows was decent 30 miles or more offshore before Hurricane Dolores, but after the hurricane these fish became hard to find. A few are still being caught, but they are still quite a ways out, and that is a really big ocean. Trying to find current and/or color edges gave the best chance for getting into the big fish bracket. Smaller fish, from 6 pounds to 20 pounds were found among porpoise closer to home on the Pacific side, and on the Cortez side as well as south of the San Jaime Banks there were occasional schools of 30-50 pound fish. If you were the only boat in the area lures worked on the footballs and the school fish, but Marlin lures or live bait slow trolled 80+ yards back brought the large fish to the transom.

DORADO: Most of the Dorado being caught were on the smaller end of the scale with an average of 12 pounds. There were plenty of “flip-flops” (small fish just larger than a shoe) to be shaken off or rigged for live bait as well as a scattering of 20 pound class fish. Big news however was the catch of a giant Dorado reported to have weighed 102 pounds on a spring scale, weighed at sea. At almost 20 pounds larger than the existing world record, everyone was surprised that the fish was not held for weighing on a certified scale, but it went under the knife instead and now we will never know for sure.

WAHOO: There were a few Wahoo brought in these past two weeks and I believe the largest was around 54 pounds. They were scattered and offshore. I did not hear of any caught in the normal near shore high spots and drop-offs.

INSHORE: Roosterfish have been the target of the Pangas these past two weeks, but it was almost four days after the passing of Hurricane Dolores that the boats were able to get some decent water just off the beach. Fish from 10 to 50 pounds were not uncommon, and slow trolling a live bait in 25-50 feet of water got you into these, as well as some very nice (but not good eating) Jack Crevalle. There was a scattering of Snapper to be found on the bottom in the rocky areas and some very nice grouper as well. For the most part, other fish caught near the beach were Bonito and Skipjack, an occasional Pompano, and occasional Needlefish and plenty of triggerfish for those fishing the bottom.

NOTES: It has been two weeks since my last report, and it will be two weeks until my next one. I have been busy on several projects and I will be fishing from the 29^th through the 7^th for the East Cape Bisbee Tournament. I will be out of phone and wi-fi contact for most of the coming time, but will give an update when I return.

If you are planning on booking a fishing trip soon (or later in the year), contact me to see what I can set you up with. The fishing continues to get better every week so now is the time, while the weather is still good and the pressure light! I offer fishing charters for people with any type of experience on the water at reasonable rates, and service is the name of the game to me!

My music of the week is Ernest Ranglin from his album “Below The Bassline”. If you have never heard of him, please give him a listen, I know you will love his guitar work!

The information I use in these reports are obtained in many different ways, some from personal experience, some from my clients and Captains who are out every day, and some from on-line subscription services such as Fish-Track, BuoyWeather and SurfZone as well as HurricaneZone. I, and only I, am responsible for any errors made, as I sift all this information and compile it.

Thank you very much for checking out my report, and if you would like to book a charter, check out www.flyhooker.com, I have just re-vamped the web site , it is still under development, but there will be new photos, articles, tips and techniques every week starting next month.

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Meanwhile, Tight lines!