Cass Tours Fishing Report - April 27, 2014

San Jose del Cabo

With spring break now officially over, crowds of visitors have lighted up, weather patterns have continued to warm, feeling increasingly tropical this past week, early morning clouds, then plenty of sunshine and high temperatures now into the upper 80s. Ocean water temperatures are ranging 76 to 79 degrees, from Cabo San Lucas to Loss Frailes, no significant temperature breaks seen. Winds have still been somewhat unpredictable, though this week has been much more settled than last, recent trend has been that the south winds are kicking up mid day, early mornings have been very comfortable.

No news of any new resources for sardinas, available baitfish have been moonfish, various jacks and fresh brined ballyhoo. There were reports of more flying fishing now being seen in the warming currents, always a favorable sign, water clarity has rapidly improved as well, clean blue water was now found within a half mile of shore.

Early in the week the billfish action was predominately found further offshore, though that quickly changed, as striped marlin moved in within less than one mile from shore, straight out in front of the Puerto Los Cabos Marina, these fish were readily striking on trolled ballyhoo and also hitting on live baits being drifted down deep. Most of these stripers were weighing in the 80 to 120 pound range. Locals are continuing to exploit these marlin, catching them as if they were just part of an hugely abundant, never ending resource and then selling them on the black market, as local authorities turn their heads the other direction, supposedly these billfish are a protected species, preserved for sport fishing, apparently there is no priority in enforcing such laws.

Dorado were spread out, more often in limited numbers, most anglers were fortunate to land one, occasional exceptions of schools of these fish encountered, sizes ranged up to 25 pounds, trolling various live or rigged baits was most productive. Wahoo were also in the area, but only a handful were actually landed each day, most of them from areas north of Punta Gorda, striking on various baitfish, more so than on artificial lures, sizes ranged to 35 pounds. With the way the ocean conditions are shaping up, anything could happen on any given day, as we are seeing optimal conditions now, favorable for a variety of gamefish.

Most of the local panga charters are either targeting the close by billfish action, or heading north towards the San Luis Bank, where they are targeting a variety of structure species, working yo-yo jigs off the high spots, as well as trolling surface baits or lures for dorado, or chance at a wahoo, marlin were on these grounds as well. We are not seeing any yellowfin tuna action to report. The closest we are really getting to tuna now is with the Eastern Pacific Bonito, which despite the warmer waters are still be caught in fair numbers, striking best early in the day, these bonito are showing signs of slowing down, they are more of a cold water species. Other bottom action included pargo (various species), amberjack and cabrilla. With the rapidly warming waters we have not seen much in the way of yellowtail. More amberjack arre starting to appear though. Sea lions continue to be aggressively feeding on these same fishing grounds, at times making it nearly impossible to land fish, these mammals know where the fish are schooling and they also know how much easier they are to catch when they are hooked on a line and be reeled towards the surface, this is like a game of cat and mouse for these sea lions.

Surprisingly there were still reports of some incredible whale activity, now well past due time that these mammals should be half way through their northern migration.

Inshore action included sierra, roosterfish and jack crevalle, though this action was a bit sporadic from day to day, surely would be better if there were sardinas available for chumming, especially for the sierra, which are proficient at slicing the larger bait fish in half.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 85 charters for this past week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 48 striped marlin, 13 wahoo, 15 amberjack, 23 huachinago, 24 cabrilla, 14 jack crevalle, 18 sierra, 47 dorado, 230 bonito and 26 roosterfish.

Rancho Leonero - East Cape

Water - 79-81 degrees; clear and flat all week. Air - Highs in the mid-80s; cool mornings.

The Environment: Flat water, light breezes, clear skies and noisy reels followed by ceviche and margaritas.

The Bottom Line: A solid Leonero 8+ on a “1-10” scale!

Marlin – Off the board! Striped marlin are loving the trolled Leonero-rigged ballyhoo off the La Ribera Bank, with three or four releases a day not unusual. These are all big fish … right around 200 pounds.

Dorado -The dorado were bigger and were found in greater numbers than the past couple of weeks. Most of our boats have been limiting, with the average fish around 12 pounds and some bulls pushing 40. The area around the Lighthouse has been by far the most productive with the fish biting very close to the beach on the Rincon side.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch …Roosterfish and more – Our big roosterfish have finally come to the party! Five days out of the past seven have produced pez gallo in the 50- to 70-pound class. These will put a bend in your rod and a curl in your hair to say nothing of brightening your disposition after a long winter. Caballito and mullet are both working, with the Lighthouse area again producing the biggest fish. Pompano – Not too many boats looking for them with marlin, dorado and roosters on everyone’s mind.

Cabo San Lucas - Gaviota Fleet

This past week has been a very difficult fishing week for the various Cabo San Lucas sportfishers and while there is plenty of billfish in almost all directions, they are in their "don't bite mode" and have become frustratingly difficult to get on the line.  According to Captain Roberto Marquez, owner of the Fish Cabo boats, they baited more than 30 billfish today for a single biter and got lucky enough to get the fish landed and released aboard the "Tuna Time".  High boat for the week was the Fish Cabo, skippered by Roberto's brother, Gil Marquez, with a catch of 6 stripers released for 5 days fished.  The overall combined fish counts for a total of 24 days fished reflected 13 stripers, (12 released) 1 roosterfish, 12 dorado and 1 skipjack.  Roberto added that the fish are going to bite at some point and when they do, it will be a bonanza of marlin and dorado, adding that the dorado are nearly all big fish and chasing the flyers but not biting the lures or anything else they have been using.  It's almost like the dorado were learning their non-bite  techniques from the billfish.

Cabo Climate:  Mostly sunny, warm and clear days with temps that ranged from 63 nights to 90 daytime highs.

Sea Conditions:  Overall, its been really good with warm waters on both sides of the peninsula.  Pacific side at the Golden Gate is 71-72 degrees and southerly to the Jaime Bank at 74 degrees.  Cabo Falso holding at 75 and from Cabo San Lucas out to the Cabrillo Sea Mount and into the Sea of Cortez is all at 79 degrees.

Best Fishing Area:  The billfish are everywhere from close to far and the secret is trying to find the biters.  There is no particular "hot spot" for biters and one can straight line the direction into the east and bait fish all day long.

Best Lure/Bait:  Live bait has been best with a fish or two taken on the artificials, but overall, the fish don't want to bite.

Live Bait Supply:  Remains plentiful for the caballitos and also a good availability for the fresh frozen ballyhoo baits, too, all at $3.00 each.

The Great Ceramic Lure

I had a few questions coming in about this lure. All my clients know that I've been fishing with http://MakairaPullingLures.com/ for many years and wouldn't leave the dock without my Makaira Brutus, 19, 18 and Lenas. But, the bullet lure in the photo is a Mark White lure out of Kauai. I met Mark on a trip out to the Garden Isle back in 2007. He proceeded to load me up with his unique ceramic lures. He has formulated his own proprietary ceramic mix that when cured becomes as hard as steel, of which he demonstrated in his studio by dropping one of his heads on a concrete floor. He counts each time he has dropped the head to illustrate the strength of the ceramic mix. When I was there in '07 he had dropped the lure around a hundred times, and you could see all the cracks and chips in the concrete where the lure had struck the floor. He is probably up to 8004 on the drop count by now and I am sure the collection of cracks in his studio floor continues. He also has a variety of glaze colors that have a unique foil (oil slick) characteristic to them with some great textures. These baits were definitely wahoo and deck proof, but, do they trolling...and raise fish? Well, I've run his 9" Slant and it has done very well on the billfish and dorado. Also, his 5" bullet heads are a "go to" for small pelagics on the shotgun. What I really like about his baits are that they are perfectly weighted, as ceramic has a nice weight to it as a material and the glazes he comes up with are really nice. Mark also has a ceramic popper (again, immune to the abuses of the reef) that is very popular in The Islands for surf fishing for jacks (ulua, papio, etc). His work is definitely worth adding to your collection.

You can check out his lures at http://www.markwhitelures.com/

Cass Tours Report - April 20, 2014

East Cape-Rancho Leonero
Water - Watertemps have stabilized with inshore at 72 degrees; outside 75 degrees.

Air - Warm days and cool evenings

The Environment: Beautiful! In the past few years, the days surrounding Easter have tended to be windy, but not this year. The water has been generally flat as a tortilla. We've had warm days and cool evenings.

The Bottom Line: A solid Leonero 8.5 on a '1-10' scale!

Marlin – Stripers rule! One boat got 5 fish for the day; another hooked 6 and boated 3. Most fish are hitting rigged ballyhoo. One boat counted over 40 jumpers … many nearly close enough to grab over the gunwale. Not that we’d suggest that! These fish were only three miles in front of Leonero.

Dorado – A continued strong bite in the bay at Rincon, just past the Lighthouse. Most fish are being taken on fly-lined ballyhoo. There are toothy needlefish mixed in with the dorado, so it’s a good idea to double up on the bait … you’ll need it.

Pompano – Rancho Leonero continue to pick up good sized pompano as well as barred pargo. You’ll find ‘em by going deep at 60- to 150-feet. Best areas are directly in front of Leonero, in front of Scott Glen's house and at the Lighthouse.

Roosterfish and more Everything seemed to go quiet on the beach with not much action for our cadre of fly-fishers. This should change as spring normally brings a lot of activity accompanying the arrival of baitfish schools.

Gordo Banks - San Jose del Cabo
Easter Week is attracting local families to all of the accessible beaches, as this is the traditional time to spend time with family and friends on the shoreline. Practically the whole city shuts down this weekend, as no one wants to miss out on any of the action. This is also transition time for the weather patterns, days are steadily warming, though there has been a mix of cloud cover and cooler Pacific breezes sweeping through actually the ideal climate now, with high temperatures into the 80s.

Many locals always say that the fish go on vacation as well over the holiday, with the recent full moon passing and choppy ocean conditions for a few days, we did see the water clarity become blotchy and the all around fishing action was more scattered. Striped marlin with some dorado mixed in has been the main deal offshore, varying from day to day, at times fish were found within several miles, other days out to 20 miles. There were reports of offshore porpoise activity, but no yellowfin tuna were associated. Anglers were trolling open water with lures and using either rigged ballyhoo or live caballito for bait. The live bait found inside the marina dock area did become scarcer during the moon as well.

Panga fleets looking for the best chances at action for a variety of more preferred good eating species were concentrating on the San Luis Bank. The Eastern Pacific bonito was the most prevalent catch, striking best on yo-yo jigs, though there was also a mix of snapper, cabrilla, amberjack and even an occasional yellowtail, though no real numbers of any of these species, except for the bonito, limits were standard for them. Though there was the ever increasing situation of problematic sea lions hanging around these same grounds, being aggressive and opportunistic of stealing angler’s catches, fifteen of these mammals were counted one day on these same banks, making it nearly impossible to actually reel a fish all the way to the boat.

Not as many wahoo stories being told in recent days, but with water temperatures of 75 degrees, these species are staying in the area. There were reports of increased activity of schooling flying fish offshore, this is usually a favorable sign of spring time and should attract more gamefish into the local waters. Thrasher sharks were also reported from the same billfish grounds.

Inshore action was spotty for sierra, roosterfish and jack crevalle. Quite a few sierra seen, but without sardinas it has not been easy to entice them, a few charters that somehow obtained some frozen sardinas, did well on these sierra. Some days the juvenile sized roosterfish were found just north of the Puerto Los Cabos Marina Jetty’s, these smaller fish were having trouble swallowing the larger sized live baits. Other days the roosters vanished, hard to predict these jacks, sometimes bite best early, other days late, tide can come in to play as when these fish become more active.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 73 charters for this past week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 1 thrasher shark, 1 sailfish, 29 striped marlin, 2 wahoo, 6 yellowtail, 8 amberjack, 25 huachinago, 15 jack crevalle, 12 sierra, 36 dorado, 380 bonito and 16 roosterfish.

Gaviota Fleet - Cabo San Lucas
The striper action continues for the Cabo anglers and while the town is full of tourists, it's primarily the non-fishing Easter Week groups that enjoy the land based activities.  Really good for the town, just not for the boats.  High billfish boat for the week was the "Fish Cabo", reflecting 4 stripers released and 1 dinner dorado for a single fishing day, followed by the "Gaviota II", reflecting 5 stripers for 6 days fished.  The overall fish counts for a combined total of 17 days fished reflected 15 stripers, (14 released) 1 dorado and 2 skipjack tuna.  The better fishing remains on the eastern side of Cabo and toward the Sea of Cortez, in the warmer waters.  The full moon of April 15th had a slight impact on the overall fishing but for the most part, all boats had billfish opportunities through the week for their anglers.

Cabo Climate:  Partly cloudy but warm days with scattered sunshine.  Temps varied from 64 nights to 92 daytime highs.

Sea Conditions:  Variable surface breezes from the south to the east and ranging from calm to 16 mph, (The afternoons, starting at about 1pm have been a little breezy but otherwise, pretty calm overall).  Pacific side has a distinct temp break running north to south just inside the Golden Gate Bank, with 71 degrees pushing down across the Jaime Bank and inshore where the temps increase to 74-75.  Cabo Falso and around the corner of Cabo San Lucas to Las Frailes and into the Sea of Cortez, temps are stable at 76-77 degrees.

Best Fishing Area(s):  The 1150 Fathom Spot continues to be the best producing area for the billfish, albeit, we had a report of a striper taken at Pozo De Cota, up on the Pacific side of Cabo with others taken off Cabo Falso and the Santa Maria Bay area.

Best Bait/Lures:  Live bait was best but the ballyhoo baits were also working well, too.

Live Bait supply:  The caballitos were readily available from the bait vendors at the $3.00 per bait rate.  Also, some of the bait vendors had the ballyhoo baits available, also at the $3.00 per bait rate.

East Cape Guides April Report 2014

This is definitely looking like an early season, tuna in April, wahoo staying over on the Gordo Banks, kinda crazy, but we will take it. Good early season fishing can be had with very little crowds. We have only been seeing a few cruisers and pangas heading out every day on calm seas. Weather has been great, mid to high 80s with a little bit of chill in the mornings just to remind you it's Springtime. The water temps are hanging around 74-76 and the Terrafin reports are showing the warmer water that invaded the East Cape over the last few weeks has moved offshore and dissipated. Fishing has been better South for us on the dorado and tuna. Marlin are spread out in front of La Ribera taking trolled and pitchbait ballyhoo. Bait is all about the large horse ballyhoo and small juvenile ballyhoo on the dorado. Tuna are being taken on blue/silver hoochies on light line and fluorocarbon leader. This is not a wide open, "put the cedar plugs out and they all go off," tuna fishing. So, you want to make those hookups count. Great fishing with Steve, Eddie, Jimbo, Chuy, Pancho and Marcos. We did have one marlin expire on us. Everyone knows I am a huge proponent of C&R and fishery preservation efforts. We rarely have a billfish mortally wounded during a fight, but it does happen. My client opted to have a Japanese gyotaku print made by Lyle Brunson. I did have the opportunity to assist Lyle in two marlin prints. See the photos of the print making process below.

You can see more of Lyle's work by following this link: http://eastcapeguides.com/fishprints.html

Buena pesca,

Mark

TUNA IN APRIL ANYONE?

Well, first day out we run into some yellowfin...the first tuna of the year. We pulled a hook at color on a estimated 45# fish and then landed a few smaller units. No big numbers but not bad for April. We had loads of sushi and sashimi at the Hotel Palmas De Cortez pool. Jealous much? Anyway, there is a big pocket of warm water right off the East Cape fueling the bite. The fish are spread out from Punta Arena and North. We landed and release two very nice striped marlin today. The bait situation is all about the ballyhoo, both large and small. Air temps are perfect with little to no wind on the water. Just great Spring time weather. See photos of Steve, Eddie and Jimbo, Chuy, Pancho and Marcos.

Buena pesca,

Mark