EAST CAPE VACATION TRIP TO HOTEL PALMAS DE CORTEZ
FINDS HOT SURFACE FISHING FOR SMALLER SIZED TUNA

Sept. 8, 2004, Jerry Fukui, East Cape fishing, at Hotel Palmas de Cortez, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

Flew down to Palmas de Cortez on Friday, Sept 3rd to catch the last few days of summer before my son, Cary had to return to his 1st day of High School. If it were not for that, we would have planned our trip to skirt around hurricane Howard. But we took a chance anyway and kept our fingers crossed.

Our East Cape fishing trip ended being much better than our recent trip in July despite encountering very unstable weather.

Saturday we awoke to gray, dark clouds and threats of rain, but being diehards we ventured out anyway. After a quick 25 minute ride our captain, Daniel of the boat Champagne stopped in the middle of nowhere. No jig strike, no fish jumping or signs of porpoise and obviously no metering of fish. Daniel started to throw out handfuls of sardinas and all of a sudden the sea just erupted! Within 1 hour we had 20 yellowfin tuna. Not much size, smaller than football tuna, but for Cary it was a treat. We left with the tuna still boiling around the boat to search for other species, but then the rains came! And did they come. At times we felt like we were re-filming Perfect Storm with the rain blowing sideways and the whitecaps drenching us more. Decided to come back inside the bay, but never saw any other action, but were happy to find we were the high boat for the day.

The following day also brought dark clouds but fortunately, rain was not in the forecast. But neither were fish. We decided to target the dorado and headed south towards the lighthouse and encountered dark, dirty green water. Ended up trolling for billfish and were rewarded with just a long boat ride and the grim news that boats that went north faired very well.

Monday ended being the most beautiful day with nothing but blue skies and...an angry north wind that whipped up the seas with 5+ foot swells. Fortunately, Daniel overheard talk of boats catching yellowfin tuna amongst a school of porpoise about 30 miles out. Within seconds of putting out our lines we were rewarded with a double hookup. Cary had a challenge on his hands in landing the largest which I estimated at over 60#. We ended that day with 4 nice sized tunas and one sailfish. We think we could've caught more, but most of the bait died getting hammered by the swells.

Tuesday was our day to fly home, but since our flight was at 6 PM we decided to hire a panga for half day. And of course, this was the best day of them all. Thin cloud cover to keep the sun at bay and flat, flat seas. But since we only had 1/2 day, we decided to stay inshore and fish for pargo, snapper and the roosters. The captain insisted on me only getting 5 baits! I'll know better next time because the roosters were everywhere and we ended up with a pargo, small snapper, 1 rooster and a 30# amberjack. We would have had more, but on one cast the captain made, the hook went one direction and the bait the other...

If you're planning on going down to East Cape soon, fish along Rancho Buena Vista and get a lot of caballitos! The roosters are waiting!