FEW LOCAL FISHING BOATS VENTURE OUT AS ROUGH SEAS EXPECTED

Sept. 17, 2004, Rick Barber, Mulege, Mexico Fishing Trip Results:

Not much Mulege fishing this week due to marginal sea conditions and having to prepare for hurricane Javier which hit at the end of the week. The fishing guides in the area did not go out and I heard of only two gringos and one commercial pangero doing any fishing.

One of the gringos, Tom, went trolling and said he put a lot of miles on the boat but managed to put a few fish in the box on Wednesday. Along with a respectable Dorado, he caught some nice Triggerfish, two species of grouper and some Cabrilla. Tom fished Isla Santa Inez, Pt. Concepción and The Mine areas.

A Mulege fishing friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous for some reason, caught six Dorado, also on Wednesday, but they were mostly juveniles that were hardly big enough to get their mouth around the hook. He also caught some other fish but it was not a day to write home about. He fished the Pt. Concepción area also. One of his passengers on the outing, a local 9-year old Mexican boy, saw his first whale, porpoise and Dorado on the trip. I would consider that alone to make it a special and successful trip!

One of the Mulege commercial pangueros I regularly talk to reported catching 6 larger pargo to 20 lbs., an equal number of nice Cabrilla and two grouper in the 20-25 lb. category. Those were in addition to 15 kilos of Triggerfish (that's 15 kilos of Triggerfish fillets!!). Nice outing! He reported that other commercial pangueros reported taking lots of larger Pargo and Cabrilla as well. Remember that a "Cabrilla" to a Mexican fisherman is anything that looks like a bass, grouper or cabrilla. He also reported that there are a lot of sardines out there. The purse seiners have not been working in this Mulege fishing area for a long time so there are a lot of meat balls out there for the larger fish to pursue.

Mulege fishing water remains a nice 82-85 degrees but 4 to 6-foot swells on Monday and Tuesday kept most of the boats tied up in port. The Mulege commercial fishing guys went out on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but were pulling their boats on Friday in preparation for the hurricane. Hopefully, the weather will clear and the water will flatten out after Javier passes. There is more turbulent weather south of Baja, but it hasn't organized into a depression and, hopefully, it won't. At any rate, my hooks are sharp and my leaders have been replaced with new wire. I'm ready to go. I just need the weather to cooperate!

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from Mulege and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for Mulege may be found at Mexfish.com's main Mulege page.