SOME FOOTBALL TUNA SHOWING UP FOR THE CABO FLEET

May 2-8, 2005, George Landrum, Fly Hooker Sportfishing, Cabo San Lucas fishing, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

The Cabo San Lucas vacation area continued to have northwest winds this week, daytime highs in the low 90s, sunny skies with cool mornings and evenings.

The California current has kept the water on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas cold with most of the area between 64 and 68 degrees, at least until the San Jaime where the water warmed up to 70-71 degrees.

On the Cortez side of Cabo San Lucas the fishing water has been much warmer, in the 77 degree range. The strong California current has been at around 2 knots. The Pacific side has been rough and the Cortez side to the east of the 95 spot has been decent, but a bit lumpy.

There were Caballito baits available at the normal $2 per bait and if you went up toward San Jose early in the morning there was a chance of getting Sardinas at $20 per bucket.

The bite on Striped Marlin has been improving. Most of the fish have been holding in the warmer water on the Cortez side out toward the 95 spot or up the coast past the Gorda Banks area, up around Punta Gorda. Between one and four fish have been caught per boat with a pretty even mix between live bait and lure caught fish.

Football Tuna in among the Dolphin were a fairly common catch this week among Cabo San Lucas charter fishing boats and there were a few larger fish found as well, fish up to 30 pounds. Still none of the #100 fish showing up, but hopefully they will be here soon. A few fish were caught in the blind this week but most of them were associated with the Dolphin.

The best fishing for Dorado this week was on the Cortez side of Cabo San Lucas out around the 1000 fathom curve. There were strong current lines and rips in the area and they had the fish excited and feeding heavily. As the water has warmed up there have been more flying fish in the Cabo San Lucas sportfishing area and there were good concentrations of them out at the drop. This also bodes well for a showing of Blue Marlin soon!

There was a pretty fair pick on the Wahoo this week but most of the fish were found up around the Punta Gorda area by Cabo San Lucas boats fishing for Marlin. The Gorda Banks had fish showing up there as well and Mackerel Scad rigged with a short wire bite leader and dropped to around 100 feet caught some nice fish for a few boats slow trolling them on the east side of the inner Gorda.

Most of the inshore fishing around Cabo San Lucas was close to home with a half-dozen decent Sierra per boat, fish to 8 pounds. There were also Jack Crevalle mixed in with them. A Roosterfish bite occurred of the beach at San Cristobal for a day or so with fish to 35 pounds being caught, but the wind only allowed for a few hours in the morning before the water became too rough to stay. There are big concentrations of Mullet moving into this Cabo San Lucas fishing area so hopefully the Roosterfish bite will pick up soon.