VAN WORMER RESORTS FISHING REPORT 11/12/10

by Eddie Dalmau, Van Wormer Resorts

15 Sailfish Day

Small Black Marlin

Billfish numbers on the rise in the East Cape of Baja California Sur, Mexico. October and November turned out to be the biggest two months of the year when it came to billfish. Hotel Palmas De Cortez hosted several billfish tournaments in October and November including the East Cape Classic, Dark of the Moon, Dove Island Pickle fest, and the Salt Patrol annual tournaments. Each of these tournaments includes billfish as part of their scoring system and are 100% catch and release. In early October we started to notice that the billfish numbers were on the rise. Many sailfish and stripe marlin were being reported by captains and anglers each day at the docks. As October came to an end, the East Cape Classic came to Hotel Palmas De Cortez for its annual tournament. 37 boats fished the tournament and after 3 days of fishing the total numbers were incredible. 134 sailfish, 72 stripe marlin, 19 blue marlin and 2 black marlin for a total of 227 billfish over the three day tournament. Next up was the Dove Island Pickle fest annual tournament. This tournament was much smaller with only 6 boats fishing the three day tournament and they landed 120 billfish. At the same time, over at hotel Playa Del Sol, the Dark of the Moon tournament was taking place. They had 5 teams fishing the two day tournament and they landed 50 sailfish, 26 stripe marlin, 46 dorado, and 11 tuna. As if this wasn’t already great news, on November 4th the annual Salt Patrol tournament arrived at Hotel Palmas De Cortez. 20 boats fished this three day tournament and the results were staggering! This tournament broke the all time Baja’s Van Wormer Resorts record for 20 boats or less with 221 Sailfish, 112 Stripe Marlin, 4 Blue Marlin and 1 Black Marlin for a grand total of 338 billfish. It was really great to see so many billfish in the East Cape over the past few weeks. Catch, Photograph and Release….IT WORKS!

Eddie Dalmau
Baja’s Van Wormer Resorts

VAN WORMER RESORTS FISHING REPORT 11/6/10

by Eddie Dalmau, Van Wormer Resorts

As the fishing season winds down and the East Cape prepares for the windsurfing and kite boarding season, one thing that most will agree on is that it has been one of the best fishing seasons in quite a long time. Many anglers that I spoke with told me that they had been coming down to the East Cape for over 10, 15, 20 years and that they have never seen the fishing as good as it was this season. The East Cape is closing out its season with a bang! Yesterday was the first day of the annual Salt Patrol marlin tournament and it was quite a day. 20 boats entered this year’s tournament, many whom fish the tournament every year. Yesterday’s fish counts were off the charts with 105 billfish consisting of 75 sails, 28 stripe marlin and two blues. Quite a start to this, the last tournament of the season. Earlier in the week we saw some nice numbers in the dorado and tuna, with some nice size fishing coming to the dock. The dorado have been in the 15-40lb. range, much bigger than in past weeks, and the tuna have been coming to the dock in the 30-80lb. range. We are still seeing quite a few wahoo as well, most have been landed near Punta Pescadero. The billfish have been staying to the north of Palmas De Cortez still being landed along the buoy line all the way up to the ocho ocho. We are still seeing roosters and jacks near the shore line, with some nice 30-40lb. roosters being landed by clients at Punta Colorada and Palmas De Cortez. As a matter of fact, one guest was fishing off the dock at Palmas De Cortez and a rooster hit is bait and within 10 seconds his rod exploded into several pieces. The guest was shocked at first, but then was very excited as he had a great story to tell everyone.

That’s it for this week amigos! Until next week!

Eddie Dalmau
Baja’s Van Wormer Resorts

Van Wormer Resorts Fishing Report 10/29/10

by Eddie Dalmau, Van Wormer Resorts

Hola Amigos! Once again the hot topic down in the East Cape was the number of billfish being landed. If you’ve never landed a billfish, then you must make a trip to the East Cape. There just isn’t any place like it in the world when it comes to fishing for blue marlin, stripe marlin and sailfish. We had boats that landed in one day 8 sails, 5 stripes and 2 blues. It doesn’t get much better than that my friends. The hot spot for billfish continues to be a few miles north of the “ocho ocho”, which is a little over 1 ½ hours north of hotel Palmas De Cortez. The hot bait seems to be ballyhoo and try to go as light on the line as you can. As if great marlin fishing wasn’t enough, the tuna bit, which had slowed down a bit earlier in the week, picked up quite a bit on Thurday and Friday. We had a good number of 40-80 pound tunas come to the dock along with some nice dorado up to 41lbs. If you like fishing close to shore or from the beach, there was plenty of action near Punta Colorada where the skip jacks were schooling. The biggest fish this week was landed by Roberto Gil of Chula Vista, California. Roberto landed this nice 185lb. yellowfin that took him close to 3 hours to land (see picture below).

That’s it for this week….hope to see you in the East Cape soon!

Eddie Dalmau
Baja’s Van Wormer Resorts