Loreto Fishing Reports and Sportfishing Vacation Information

Photo of dorado caught while fishing at Loreto, Mexico.

LORETO GOLD--Jose Lopez with a beautiful dorado caught at Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Photo courtesy Jose Lopez.

Loreto fishing articles, maps, fishing reports, peak seasons, hot spots, and vacation travel information for the top sportfishing locations of Loreto, Mexico.

Sitting astride latitude 26 north on the Sea of Cortez, Mexico’s famous Loreto sportfishing area enjoys an enviable geographic position, very close to the northern limit of what you could think of as Baja California’s truly “warm water” fishing zone, while only 80 miles north of Loreto--near Punta Chivato--the fishery changes significantly as water temperatures begin to transition more and more toward the cooler ranges of the Midriff Area.

Loreto’s geographic location, sandwiched between the cooler waters of the Midriff Area to its north and the warmer waters of the southern Sea of Cortez, gives it two very pronounced fishing seasons on two very different and highly-prized game fish: dorado in the summer months, and yellowtail in winter.

In summer, the annual northward dorado migration up the Sea of Cortez gets started off East Cape about mid-May. By mid-June, the main mass of dorado is centered in the remote Juanaloa archipelago north of La Paz, and guess what happens in July?

Loreto’s famous July dorado fishing run is a reliable blast of nearly idiot-proof surface action as the always-hungry, golden-hued predators crowd into the channels and just outside the many islands between Punta San Marcial in the south, and Punta Pulpito in the north.

As the Loreto sportfishing area’s water temperatures climb into the low and middle-80s, many of these dorado will actually be headed farther north, up to the Mulege area, and some even penetrate into the Midriff’s cooler waters, but most years, Loreto gets the lion’s share of the catch. Troll live bait if you must, as is the local tradition, but really, almost any method of surface fishing, with almost any kind of lure, will get you dorado limits at these times. If you really want to catch dorado, you can’t do any better than Loreto in July.

By mid-November, though, the summer dorado have largely abandoned Loreto's sport fishing waters (you’ll still snag a few stragglers), and they are in turn replaced in the local fishing action by cool water-loving, deep-dwelling yellowtail, as water temperatures fall back down into the mid-70s and then the mid-60s by January. This Loreto yellowtail “run” is composed of both “home guard” resident fish, and fish that have migrated south from the Midriff and Mulege areas, and it will persist through the winter and into spring, finally tapering off in mid-April.

Photo of yellowtail caught while fishing at Loreto, Mexico.

LORETO YELLOWTAIL--Mitchell Rose with a nice 40-pound yellowtail caught while fishing deep using live bait off Isla Coronado with Capt. Juan Pablo Martinez of Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Photo courtesy Mitchell Rose.

Fishing for Loreto’s yellowtail is a very different proposition from summer dorado fishing for two reasons: wind and depth. By mid-November, the winter “norte” winds can make getting out to the fishing grounds tough or nearly impossible about three or four days per week, and once you get there, the yellowtail are rarely frolicking on the surface like the “easy” dorado, but are down deep near the rocks, where their short but supremely powerful runs cause a lot of lost tackle and cussing among Americans and Mexicans alike.

Unlike the free-swimming dorado, yellowtail are oriented to rocky underwater structure, so, winds permitting, Loreto’s best yellowtail spots tend to be both north and south of town, and around the rocky points on the north, south, and east sides of large Isla Carmen, about 12 miles straight out from the beach. Some yellowtail are also caught around near shore Islas Coronado and Danzante, but these are less abundant and usually smaller, so they are fished mostly when the wind is blowing too hard for longer runs.

As with the dorado, the northern limit for Loreto’s charter fishing pangas is at about Punta Pulpito, roughly 40 daunting miles up the coast. To the south, few sportfishing boats will run farther than Punta Candeleros, about ten miles past Puerto Escondido.

In addition to its famous summer dorado and winter yellowtail, the Loreto vacation area offers seasonally good fishing for a very wide spectrum of species, including offshore marlin, sailfish, and distant yellowfin tuna, and inshore roosterfish, giant needlefish, sierra, pargos, cabrilla, and a host of miscellaneous fish.

But really, these other fine game fish are not the main event for anglers who travel to Loreto, where dorado and yellowtail are the foundation of a large sportfishing fleet of experienced pangueros, well-equipped pangas, and even a few charter fishing cruisers that operate from town and from nearby Puerto Escondido.

Loreto, setting for the first Spanish mission of the Californias established in 1697, is today a well-developed vacation destination for the traveling angler, with a full range of charter fishing boats, hotels, excellent restaurants, an international airport, and services for vacation activities of all kinds, except for night clubs and such.

Photo of wahoo caught while fishing at Loreto, Mexico.

LORETO WAHOO--Dean Mitchell fished out of Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico, with Juncalito’s Capt. Manuel Torres (left) for this nice wahoo. Photo courtesy Dean Mitchell.