VACATION FISHING AREA WATER TEMPERATURES AT 64 DEGREES

Dec. 25, 2004, Rick Barber, Mulege, Mexico Fishing Report:

This week, we had off-and-on fishing conditions here in Mulege.

Monday and Tuesday proved to be fishable, with Tuesday morning being the better of the two days. Mulege vacation area winds started kicking up again on Wednesday and lasted through the weekend. After Wednesday, most Mulege fishing boats stayed in port. The sea water temperature this week is a respectable 64 degrees in most areas.

On Monday, Marty Robinson went out with some buddies to an area just north of Isla San Marcos and brought in five nice yellowtail that hit MirrOlures. The 'tails topped the scales at around 30 to 40 pounds. Marty and his wife, Suzie, lead a group every year that distributes clothes and toys to needy families on the ranches west of Mulege. I play Santa. This year, the donations also included a nice yellowtail and a couple kilos of tortillas! Whattaguy!

Jim Galvin and Roger Promise also went fishing from Mulege during the first part of the week in John Dinning's boat. They fished basically the same area north of Isla San Marcos but used live bait. They hooked five yellowtail and boated three of 14, 22 and 24 pounds.

One of our local Mulege fishing guides, Alejandro (Alex) Buckovecz, took some clients out on Tuesday and they boated three very nice yellowtail and one hammerhead shark. Alex's customers took home the 'tails and he kept the shark. Hey Alex, save me a kilo or two, will you?

Tom and Marge Leach ran into Alex in the morning at Punta Prieta and they all put some fresh bait aboard and headed north. Tom said that they found about 20 or so boats congregated at the north end of San Marcos so he just pulled into the middle and started "drowning bait". Tom said that most of the boats were scoring 'tails and Tom and Marge came away with two that tipped 24 and 27 pounds on the scales.

I worked over a couple of places on Tuesday. I started out fishing off the Mulege lighthouse and boated 12 barracuda, four mackerel, and one sierra on a tiny broken-back Rebel lure. I then went to an area north of Isla Santa Inez and used the mackerel to entice some yellowtail to bite. I couldn't get to one of my favorite spots as a sea lion had it staked out and was doing a very good job of depleting the fish in the area. They wouldn't hit my bait but two other boats in the area scored on three nice 'tails. We were fishing in about 200 feet of water which was a little difficult because we had a south wind and an outgoing tide which were working at cross purposes. We had to use a lot of weight to get down to the fish.

I then did some trolling with MirrOlures off Inez and some more bait fishing at and area known as the "mound". It is between Inez and Pt. Concepción in about 245 feet of water. Neither area proved to be productive but the wind was starting to come up fairly rapidly so I cut the trip short and headed for the barn.

Meanwhile, two boats out of San Lucas Cove found a hot spot for yellowtail off Punta Chivato. They boated eight 'tails between them. Some of the bigger ones looked to be in the 40 to 50-pound class.

That's about it for this week. We're looking for some calming Mulege fishing weather next week so we can get back to getting some more of the big 'tails in the ice chests.

(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.