ALL THE 8-POUND YELLOWTAIL YOU WANT WITH CAPT. MARCOS BLANCO

July 11, 2006, Terry Fair, Bahia de los Angeles, Baja California, Mexico:

I just returned from 3 days of fishing at Bahia de los Angeles. My guide was Marcos Blanco, who was arranged for us through Raquel Fife of Larry and Raquel's. We only ate once at Raquel and Larry's motel. It appeared to be full by the weekend.

We stayed at Los Vientos, which is a pretty nice place, but overpriced. Of the 4 mornings we were there, we did not have water on 2 of them. They do have 24-hour electricity, but the air conditioning units are way too small for the rooms and will not cool, even though it was only about 96 degrees.

However, the weather was great at Bahia de los Angeles, as was the fishing. We caught all the 8 pound yellowtail you want. After catching about 5 apiece each day, we targeted larger fish, which was pretty tough. I think we caught 1 fish about 20 pounds. However, we caught about 6 very nice Cabrilla, in the 5 to 7 pound range. The largest yellowtail we saw caught in our 3 days of fishing was a 28 pounder.

We mainly fished due east of Los Vientos, at the area to the south of Horse's Head. That area was full of 8 pound yellowtail until we quit fishing for them, about 7:30 a.m. and went looking for larger fish.

We pretty much fished all around the islands to the north of Horse's Head, but didn't do too well anywhere else. All of our fish were caught on jigs, as we never attempted to make bait.

I do think there was plenty of bait available, as almost all the other pangas were using live bait.

I don't know the water temperature, but the color was blue and clear.

In our group were 6 anglers. Three of us fished the panga, and 3 fished a 24 foot Proline cuddy cabin. They went mostly south and didn't have much luck on anything but squid.

On Friday, they went all the way to the south end of Isla Angel de la Guarda and picked up a couple of small yellowtails on the troll.

I think the total count for our panga, including fished released was about: 100 firecracker yellowtail with one fish 20 pounds and the balance about 8-9 pounds, 6 cabrilla approximately 6 pounds, and 12 Bass, Goldy eyes.

On the private boat with 3 fishermen, their approximate count was: 8 yellowtail, about 9 pounds; and 12 squid to 15 pounds. Oh, by the way, the bay is FULL of 16-20 inch barracuda. Using almost any color or size jig, if you don't hook a yellowtail by the time you are within about 15 feet of the surface, you almost certainly hook a barracuda!

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from Bahia de los Angeles and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for Bahia de los Angeles may be found at Mexfish.com's main Bahia de los Angeles page.