Cabo Fish Report July 29 – August 18, 2015

FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING

Captain George Landrum

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

Cabo Fish Report

July 29 – August 18, 2015

SYNOPSIS: There has not been a lot of change in the fishing for the past three weeks, and that is not too much of a surprise. With water temperatures in the high 80’s we are seeing a lot of Blue Marlin and Sailfish offshore, and Roosterfish along the beach. Other species have been scarce with just a few big Tuna, a few nice Wahoo and a few smaller sized Dorado.

WEATHER: We saw some rain in the past few weeks as storms from the mainland blew across the Sea of Cortez. The clouds would stack up in the mountains and then the rain would start, enough to bring some welcome relief to the thirsty desert plants. Just yesterday we had a light sprinkle here in town! I saw a lot of cloud cover during this reporting period, but an almost equal amount of sun so it was a pretty mixed experience. Our daytime highs have hit over 100 degrees several days, last week the thermometer on my truck read 103, but most of the time we have been between 95 and 98 degrees, with high humidity. Yesterday and today felt a bit cooler because of lower humidity but the gauges still read the same when it came to the temperature. Our nights have been warm as well with the lows in the low 80’s. Mostly around 82-83 degrees, and with this humidity almost anyone with an air-conditioner has been using it at night.

WATER: For this entire reporting period we have had greenish water everywhere within 30 miles of Cabo. If you ran to the southwest farther than that you got into cleaner water. Temperatures in the greenish water have been from 89 to 85 degrees, the blue water has been cooler at 85-82 degrees. With the passing of storms well offshore to the west we have had some swells to 2 meters on the southern to western exposures, but that was only for a short period of time. Most of the time the swells were around 2-4 feet and almost always glassy. When there was a breeze it was light so there was rarely any chop on the water. If you did come across any rough conditions it was almost always from the Arch to the lighthouse on the Pacific side. The combination of currents and breeze occasionally made the waves stack up, but getting past them just involved a bit of time and then you were good.

BAIT: Almost all the bait available during this time was either Caballito or Lisa (goggle-eyed scad or mullet) at the normal $3 per bait. There was also frozen ballyhoo at $3 each from a few of the bait boats.

FISHING:

BILLFISH: If you were looking for a lot of billfish you were out of luck, but if you were looking for big billfish then this was the place to be. For some reason, perhaps because the bait has been in the greenish water, the best fishing was within 30 miles, and most of it withing 15 miles. The warm water meant that the Blue Marlin and Sailfish made a showing, along with a few Black Marlin, but there were few Striped Marlin. A great day on the water in our area would result in a couple of Blue Marlin releases along with a Sailfish and a few other strikes. A slow day would have been two or three hook-ups or strikes with nothing hanging on long enough to get to the boat. Larger lures attracted the attention of the Blue Marlin, and running the at 8 to 9 knots worked much better than running them at the normal 6-7 knots used for Striped Marlin. The Sailfish had a difficult time with the larger lures though, so having a few smaller ones in the spread helped overall catch rates. The majority of the fish were found from the southwest to southeast of the Lands End and within 25 miles of port. I did spend five days fishing up on the East Cape at the beginning of the month in preparation for the Bisbee East Cape Tournament and it was very hot, very humid and very slow fishing. The water temps were between 89 and 87 degrees and we managed to have one big Blue hook up then get off and had several Striped Marlin strikes. There were 61 boats in the tournament and they fished for three days. In the end there were only two Marlin over 300 pounds caught, one was a Blue Marlin of just over 400 pounds and the other was a Black Marlin in the 380 pound range. Overall there were four Blacks, 40 Blues, five Sailfish and 13 Striped Marlin. That was 183 days of fishing for 62 fish, approximately 1 billfish for every three days of fishing. Not great numbers there, the action was much better here at home. My team had to withdraw due to mechanical issues, but we will be ready for the October tournaments here!

YELLOWFIN TUNA: The Yellowfin bite dropped off the charts for us as boats searched farther and farther afield for the cows. An occasional football sized fish was caught fishing in the blind, and those porpoise that were found most often had no fish with them.

DORADO: This has been the worst Dorado season I have ever seen here. Everyone is crying but no one is sure of the reason behind the non-appearance of these fish. Some are blaming it on the commercial fisherman who have been authorized by the government (so I have been told) to sell Dorado (up to 30% of their catch, considered by-catch while fishing in a fishery directed at other species). Dorado used to be considered a “sports” fish only, commercial sales of Mexican caught fish was prohibited. The shrimp season has been a big bust this year and many people are saying that many of the shrimp boats have re-geared so that they are catching Dorado. Other people are blaming it on El Nino, saying that the water here is too warm for the Dorado and that is why they are being caught as far north as San Francisco. Whatever the reason, my fingers are crossed that the fast growing prolific fish will be back with us soon.

WAHOO: Once again there were a few decent size Wahoo caught, and almost all of them were caught in the blind as incidental catches offshore.

INSHORE: Roosterfish and Triggerfish were the mainstay of the Pangas fishing inshore this period. Slow trolling live bait in 20-50 feet of water or casting popping plugs into the breaking waves resulted in Roosterfish as large as 65 pounds being caught and released. The average size was around 25 pounds, a very nice fight from a beautiful fish! Boats trying to bottom fishh were getting an occasional grouper, amberjack and snapper, but the bread and butter were triggerfish, and most of them were decent size for the species. They might not look like much, but the meat is flaky white and fantastic as ceviche or pan-fried.

NOTES: October bookings are filling up very fast, but there are plenty of openings for September. We are keeping our fingers crossed for “No Bad Weather”!

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. 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 an old school band only a few of us older folks may remember. “Blind Faith” album “Crossroads” disc #2.

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!