SARDINA BAIT SCARCE FOR FLY FISHING ANGLERS AT EAST CAPE

June 11, 2005, Gary Graham, Baja On The Fly, East Cape Fly Fishing, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

Weather in the East Cape vacation area continues to be remarkably cool for June. Sardina are still among the missing, though we are beginning to see a few small schools along the beach.

The only bait available are the "bigger baits" which can be anything from bonefish, yes, bonefish, to mackerel. With plenty of marlin offshore, the big baits are fine for teasing.

Most of the tuna being found by East Cape sportfishing boats are of the football variety and tough to keep around the boat long enough to get in a few casts.

Inshore, the roosterfish and the jacks are the best bet, but without the sardina, techniques are reduced to slow trolling the bigger baits, and that has produced less than stellar results.

With the lack of sardina for chum, fishing the beach has been the most productive for us this week.

Omar Moniem, of Norwalk, Conn., and his buddy, Shane, drove up from Cabo to spend the day with our guide Josh Dickinson to get some pointers. It must have worked! This is what they said: "Josh, we hit the beach again on the way back to Cabo. I caught a small rooster and Shane had what was probably a medium sized jack hooked but lost him. Thanks for your help. We had a great time, I learned a lot about a new kind of fishing, which is always my primary goal."

Talk about guide frustrations. Josh and I both had clients on a panga Friday and the action was slow, with no sardina again. Then, after the clients left, Josh, walked back to the house, and had a handful of shots. He landed a nice roosterfish right in front of the house. Go figure. Right place. Right time.

East Cape water temperatures were 68-80 degrees, and air temperature 73-85 degrees. Winds, south at 6 m.p.h.