GOOD MIXED SPECIES BILLFISH ACTION FOUND BY
CABO SAN LUCAS SPORTFISHING BOATS AT THE TIP OF BAJA

July 11, 2004, Capt. George Landrum, Fly Hooker Sportfishing, Cabo San Lucas fishing, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

WEATHER: Highs in the high 90‚s with humid air, night time lows in the high 70‚s. Thank goodness for air conditioning! There have been light winds at Cabo San Lucas during the morning hours while at sea, but almost no breeze in the morning here in town. In the afternoons and early evening it has picked up a bit and cooled things off. Slight cloud cover at the beginning and the end of the week and some good, dense clouds in the middle, and these clouds dropped some rain to the north of us, but none here.

WATER: High water temperature was 85 degrees on the Sea of Cortez and the low was around 74 on the Pacific side of Baja's tip. Straight south 15 miles from Cabo San Lucas we saw water temperatures in the middle. The surface conditions were good almost all week on the Cortez side of the Cape and on the Pacific they only got rough during the middle of the week when the cloud cover and wind moved in.

BAIT: The usual Caballito at $2 each, some Mullet but not much else.

CABO SAN LUCAS FISHING:

BILLFISH: Ok, the bite is still good but not as red hot as last week, but the variety is improving. There were trips where both Blue Marlin and Striped Marlin were caught, some where a Striped Marlin and a Sailfish were caught, or a Blue Marlin and a Sailfish, and at least one boat came in flying flags for all three! The bite has moved to the south of Cabo San Lucas and there seems to be a preference for lures right now, and live bait dropped back in the pattern just gets picked at, not really eaten. Darker colors worked the best but the Bleeding Mackerel still got a lot of strikes.

YELLOWFIN TUNA: Not a lot of changes on the Cabo San Lucas Tuna bite, there have been a lot of footballs found as well as fish in the 20-25 pound class, and most of them have been in Porpoise pods. The best area has been to the south of Cabo San Lucas 20 miles and to the south side of the San Jaime Banks. I did talk with one boat that went and worked the Golden Gate Bank and did well on fish from 20-40 pounds, but there were no other boats around at the time, and they did not find the fish on the next day‚s trip to the same area. Small feathers in bright colors did well, as did cedar plugs.

DORADO: The Cabo San Lucas Dorado bite keeps getting better and the bite moved on up into the Pacific this week with great action being found up in the Migranios area and the beach off of Margarite. The fish have not been large, averaging 12 pounds, but there have been plenty of them, and there has been the occasional beast mixed in. The larger fish have been farther offshore, and have been much more scattered. Slow trolled live bait under working Frigate Birds has provided a lot of action as has trolling medium sized bright lures.

WAHOO: A decent Wahoo bite this week around Cabo San Lucas with a few boats getting doubles on fish averaging 30 pounds. Most Cabo San Lucas boats of course never had a Wahoo strike but that is the way it often goes with these fish. The favorite lure seemed to be anything in either Bleeding Mackerel or Bleeding Dorado run either very short (second wake) or very long (back on #8 or #9).

INSHORE: Most of the boats were working a bit farther offshore than usual due to the number of Dorado to be found, and those working for the normal; inshore fish were a bit disappointed. There were some Roosterfish caught as well as Jack Crevalle, but not in the numbers to be expected at Cabo San Lucas this time of year.