Scent Blazer Lures on the East Cape - July 26, 2013

Peter Somogyi and Mike Rennie from Scent Blazer lures are making the rounds in East Cape by fishing the Dorado Shootout, East Cape Bisbee and get the word out about their line of lures and teasers with bait chambers. Peter and Mike were joined by Bruce Bevard from Cabo Riviera. We have been seeing some very large striped marlin 150lbs. plus. A beautiful Japanese fish print was provided by Lyle Brunson of Mike Rennie's 34.6 lb. roosterfish.

East Cape Guides Report - July 14, 2013

The Gentlemen of Leisure or I refer to them as the GOL Allstars had another great trip with wide open football tuna for sashimi every night, and solid striped marlin and sailfish. We are also still seeing some dorado in the 40lb range but a few were caught this week. Even the humbolt squid came in this week. The Makaira Lena was again the "go to" lure and now the Makaira 19 is getting action in the trolling spread. We also had action on the roosterfish to 30lbs. It's the East Cape at it's finest right now...

East Cape Guides Report - July 10, 2013

The striped marlin bite continues with some quality dorado also coming to the dock. Football size tuna have also been abundant under the spotted dolphin. The Martino family from the Bay Area landed this 58lb bull dorado on a Makaira Lena in guacamaya (bleeding dorado) and they continue to have an excellent July 4th weekend on the East Cape. 

Update: More big dorado (40+lbs) coming on Makaira Lena on the guacamaya and flying fish. There continues to be a well defined temp break between 21-25 miles along the East Cape. This is the line where we are seeing all the action, stripers, dorado and tuna. Tropical storm Erik presented a speed bump for a couple days but the wind was minimal and just enough rain to cool off everyone for a day. Now, it's back to beautiful weather right now. The inshore fishing has picked up a little in the last few days but inshore water temps are well below normal for this time of year. All in all, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, and we have been blessed with excellent offshore fishing the last month. Hopefully, it will continue...

Buena pesca,

East Cape Guides

Cass Tours Report - July 8, 2013

East Cape Water- 79-85 Inside, outside 15 m. temps to 89. The inshore water has warmed and cleaned up this week. Clean and clear water, flat, very light breezes.

Air- Warmer this week, with highs in the low 90's. Clear, pleasant weather.

The incredible bill fishing continues! The Dorado bite has improved, and bigger Yellowfin are hitting the beach. The Roosterfish are back with the warmer cleaner water reappearing inside. Straight off the hotel nine to fifteen miles offshore the wide open Striped Marlin and Sailfishing is as good as it gets. Multiple daily releases for all boats targeting billish. A couple of Blues are also being released daily. The Dorado are larger this week, almost all bulls in the 30 to 55# range, as usual in the same areas as the billfish. The bite has improved with more taken this week than last. The Yellowfin are bigger this week. A long boat ride 40 miles north off Cerralvo Island. Large schools of Porpise are holding tuna from 10 to 30#'s. Most anglers opting for the boat ride are limiting. The inside water has warmed and cleaned up and the Gallos have returned. The last couple of days have been wide open! The water is much warmer 15 miles outside, as the week has progressed the temps inside and outside are much closer.

Billfish- Lots around, Chris Moyer from the E Cape Smokehouse, released 10 in one day. All anglers releasing at least two. More taken on lures this week, the billfish are also going for the Ballyhoo. About one in four releases are Sails. Dorado- More around this week and bigger. Every other boat is bringing in nice bulls from 30# plus. Same zones as the billfish, most taken on lures.

Yellowfin- A long boat ride, but they are around in good numbers. Under fast moving schools of Porpise. 40-50 miles north on the outside of Cerralvo Isl. Hoochies and Cedar plugs are doing the trick.

Inside- The Gallos are back. In the past couple of days the Roosterfishing has returned to normal. Cleaner warmer water inside has helped the Gallo bite. 40 #er's common.

Cass Tours Fishing Report - June 1, 2013

Fishermen's Fleet-La Paz
The front edge of the great dorado invasion continues to linger. Big fish, most in the 40+ class, but it hasn't broken wide yet. The water is still a mixture of just warm enough, and not, with no shoals of flying fish yet, and they haven't spawned on the buoys, which would be normal by now. Every day really big dorado come in, but not on every boat. To augment that the cubera bite continues at your favorite spot, be it Roca Traversada, El Castillo, or Punta Perico, the marlin bite at the 88 for stripers and small (sub 250lb.) blues continues, and some cabrilla, roosters, and amberjack are to be had inshore.

East Cape-Rancho Leonero
Water- Still much colder than normal, inside 75 outside 82-83. Clear and clean water, morning westerly breezes, with the normal afternoon south/easters.

Air- Very pleasant, cooler than normal days, highs still in the 80's, cool mornings.

The very good fishing continues. Lots of variety, Yellowfin, Dorado, and Striped Marlin, all species are close and most boats are scoring all three daily. The bite this week is even better than last. Lots of Stripers (our best bill fishing in over ten years). 2 to 6 are being released daily, all boats targeting bill fish are releasing at least 2. The Dorado fishing has improved over the past week, with more quality fish to 55# hitting the beach than past weeks. The Yellowfin are under the Porpise and biting aggressively. Inside lots of Amberjack in the 25-30# class. The Roosterfishing has been slower than normal this week. The colder than normal water has not hurt the fishing, Boats are working the temp. breaks, with good results...

Billfish- Wide open Striped Marlin fishing, mixed with a few Sails. The bite has moved South, ten to fifteen miles off Pulmo and Frailles. About a 50/50 bite on lures and bait. All anglers scoring at least one, most 3 or 4.

Dorado- Better fishing, double the number of Dorado taken last week. Big bulls are common, largest this week 55#. Mixed with the billfish...

Yellowfin- 10 to 30 miles offshore, under fast moving Porpise. Almost all football sized this week, a few 25#er's. Fun fishing, limits if you can find them. This is our third straight week of decent tuna fishing. Taking Hoochies and cedar plugs...

Inside- Lots of Amberjack inside on the drop offs. 25 to 30# fish are common. Taking heavy iron and live Caballito. The Gallo's are not around this week, due to the much colder water than normal.
 

Gordo Banks - San Jose del Cabo
The summer season has just begun and on the Eastern Pacific we have already seen the third named tropical storm, as this week Hurricane Cosme developed off the coast of Manzanillo, before heading on a westerly path, coming within 300 miles of Cabo San Lucas and quickly encountered cooler water causing it to dissipate, never did threaten land. We never did feel more than a few sprinkles of rain, though the ocean swells quickly rose up to fifteen feet high on Tuesday and Wednesday, before residing on Thursday and Friday. Local ports of Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Los Cabos were closed to all boating activities, red flag conditions, by late Thursday morning the ports were reopened for operations.

This latest storm system brought in more tropical and humid weather, high temperatures were staying in the 80s, mild for this time of year, thick marine haze, almost fog, has been hanging over the Southern Peninsula and Pacific breezes are keep conditions comfortable. Anglers had encountered turned over inshore water conditions prior to this recent storm, which stirred things up even more and it could be a while before the water cleans and warms back up. In the mean time more consistent action was being found offshore, in the direction of the warmer currents north of the Gordo Banks and towards Los Frailes. This is where sportfishing charters have been finding decent numbers of striped marlin, a few sailfish and dorado also on these same fishing grounds. Offshore trolling with lures, looking for signs of activity, seeing some marlin on the surface and taking blind strikes by a few larger sized dorado that are starting to move into the area, also a few wahoo in the mix. Dorado to over 40 pounds were accounted for, just there are no numbers to speak of yet, though if you happened to encounter any type of floating debris you could be in for a wide open bite. This is definitely the time of year where anything could happen on any given day.

The epic roosterfish action that had been happening close to shore has come to a standstill as the water temperatures fell, water turned greenish and baitfish scattered. There is warmer water near 80 degrees now on the offshore grounds towards the north. The inshore rock outcroppings from Cardon to Vinormama have produced some quality sized amberjack, weighing up to 80 pounds, these fish are striking on surface trolled live baits, preferably moonfish, mullet or caballito. Shallow water areas of less than 50 ft., these fish migrate close to shore during this early part of summer, searching for congregated baitfish, also these are the same rock piles that hold dogtooth snapper and various grouper, good luck keeping them away from the rocks after hooking up. These are fragile reefs, susceptible to heavy boat pressure, not an area where the entire fleet can successfully target, with increased tourism and local population there is added pressure, additionally there are many more spear fishermen targeting these easily accessible spots. This is now the peak season for this inshore fishery, within several weeks this action typically would start to shift onto the deeper, more spread out rocky structure, such as the Iman and San Luis Banks, these grounds are much larger and can handle more pressure.

The combined panga fleet launching out of Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 58 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of, 1 wahoo, 25 striped marlin, 13 dorado, 16 amberjack, 12 pargo colorado, 10 yellow snapper, 6 dogtooth snapper, 14 cabrilla, 15 jack crevalle, 5 hammerhead sharks, 4 sierra and 12 roosterfish.

 

 Gaviota Fleet - Cabo San Lucas
The "Gaviota IX, skippered by Captain Christian Lopez, led the billfish catches this past week and released 9 of his 10 stripers for the week with the bulk of the catches coming from the 95 fathom spot.  The "Tuna Time" reported in today with a 4 striper release day, also with the bulk of the fish coming from the 95 fathom spot.  The overall combined totals for a total of 20 days fished reflected 23 stripers, (21 released) 7 dorado, 2 roosterfish and 32 skipjack for their efforts and that included the slump on Monday & Tuesday.  Tomorrow starts the first day of the Stars & Stripes 2-day tournament, an all-charity event, that for the first time will board from the docks in Cabo San Lucas instead of from the beach at Chileno.  The organizers were concerned for safety issues with the residual swell activity creating wave action from the beach front at Chileno Bay.  There was no wind today and it is likely to be a calm ocean for tomorrow's event and if it is, they will probably board from the Chileno Bay Beach area on Saturday morning.

Cabo Climate:  A mostly cloudy week with temps that ranged from 69 nights to 96 daytime highs.  Some intermittent sunshine as the week progressed but not too much.  Surface winds coming in from the SSE at 10-25 mph during the early part of the week but calming considerably by late Thursday and into the weekend.  Hurricane Cosme whisked by Cabo about 100-plus miles offshore and provided a southerly swell pushing at the lower end of Baja but no damage to the area and better yet, no closures to the Port.

Sea Conditions:  The Pacific current has pushed cool water back around the end of the peninsula and into the Sea of Cortez, all the way to Punta Arenas, and extended about6 8-9 miles offshore on the Sea of Cortez side,  Past the 8-mile mark the waters were much warmer from just outside the 1150 fathom spot and along the 1000 fathom curve, northerly, with temps that ranged from 76-79 degrees.  Winds flowing in from the SE at 10-25 mph and some residual swell from the hurricane, but all is expected to subside by Thursday evening with the end of the week on a plus mark.

Best Fishing Area:  It varied a little this past week but for the most part, the best striper bite was in the 95 to the 1150 fathom spot areas and in the Gorda Banks area.

Best Lure/Bait:  Live bait was by far the best but some fish were being taken on the artificials.

Live Bait Supply:  Live bait remained readily available right through the full moon phase and continued to be mostly caballitos, (aka goggle eyes on the east coast).  Price remained at $3.00 per bait.