MARLIN AND TUNA STILL DOMINATE BUT MORE SIERRA
AND YELLOWTAIL SHOWING UP IN FISHING AT CABO SAN LUCAS

Dec. 12-18, 2005, George Landrum, Fly Hooker Sportfishing, Cabo San Lucas, Baja fishing, Mexico:

Cabo San Lucas sportfishing weather this week continued mostly cloudy as bands of clouds moved over us from the northwest. Daytime highs have been around 80 degrees, while nighttime lows have been at 60 degrees.

The focus continues to be on striped marlin and yellowfin tuna offshore while the inshore prospects are looking good for more and larger Sierra and the occasional Yellowtail as the water temperature continues to drop. The whales are moving into our area in larger numbers as well.

Fishing on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, we have had mixed conditions with one day being great with small swells and little or no wind and the next there being lumpy.

Fishing water temperature has been warmer on the Pacific with most of the water between the Golden Gate and the Jaime and south at right around 74-75 degrees. On the Cortez side of Cabo San Lucas the water has been a bit greener with the area between the 1150 and the Gorda Banks being off color and 72-73 degrees. The surface water conditions on the Cortez side have been good right in front of town but as you traveled up the Cape it got a bit more choppy as there were very windy conditions past Punta Gorda.

There was no trouble getting bait this week as all the Cabo San Lucas bait boats had plenty of Mackerel at the normal $2 per bait.

The billfish bite at the Lighthouse on the Pacific side has continued to improve as the Striped Marlin move closer. It is still a drift bait fishery for the most part with an occasional bait boil on the surface with Frigates diving to mark the spot. Running to the action and tossing a live Mackerel in the middle usually resulted in a hookup for the first boat on the scene.

The action at the Finger Bank continued with Striped Marlin balling up Sardinas. I made it up there on Thursday and we released 17 fish ranging from 60 to 130 pounds while fishing with live Mackerel, tossing them to the feeders.

There have been a few fish showing off the points on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas, while the action on billfish on the Cortez side has been almost nonexistent.

Water conditions farther up on the Pacific side kept the one Cabo San Lucas private boat that was going up to check out the large tuna action from making the trip.

Closer to Cabo San Lucas there has been good to fair action on football and school size fish. The area around the San Jaime Bank continues to produce fish ranging from 10-40 pounds on lures. Boats trying to drop bait deep, around 100 feet, are getting the occasional bite on fish to 100 pounds. These fish are associated with porpoise.

Even closer to Cabo San Lucas, we had a fair tuna bite at the end of the week on tuna to 40 pounds just off the lighthouse on the Pacific side. The Marlin drift fishermen were getting the occasional fish to 40 pounds and then a decent pod of porpoise moved in and the surface action got good for two days.

I did not hear of any wahoo being caught this week.

The continued cold water has made the Dorado bite almost a thing of the imagination. This had to have been one of the worst Dorado seasons in quite some time as there was only a short time frame, maybe one month, when you could be assured of a Dorado.

Most of the inshore charter fishing pangas at Cabo San Lucas have been fishing the ledge at the lighthouse and have been catching Marlin and Tuna. For those working the shore, Sierra averaging 5 pounds have continued to provide action, an occasional 8-pound fish keeps the hopes up. There have also been some nice Pargo to 20 pounds being caught out of the rocks along all the points.