HALIBUT SPECIES CAUGHT MAY BE CALIFORNIA HALIBUT

Nov. 25, 2005, Shawn Gustafson, Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point), Mexico Fishing Trip Report:

John Korhonen, my uncle, and cousin-in-law Bobby Gonzalez from Tucson fished with me last Friday, November 25th on our boat Murphy Girl at Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco).

We left Puerto Penasco's Safe Marina about 8 a.m. with near perfect fishing conditions.

We headed out to a few reefs at 10 to 12 miles south of Puerto Penasco to look for bait and caught mostly sand bass and grunts, with only a few sardines and Pacific mackerel.

The birds weren't working and we had a hard time finding any bait besides the spotted bay bass.

We then headed south another 40 miles and drift fished a reef in 268 foot deep, 74 degree water, using both live bait and cut bait.

Bobby caught a beautiful 25 pound sawtail grouper on a live mackerel right away, and John soon caught two goldspotted bass on cut bait.

I caught a nice 15 pound California Halibut on a live mackerel and we also had two break-offs with larger fish. We decided to anchor up on a rock pile where we had gotten most of the bites, but drifted past it by 50 feet or so. We fished that spot for a while without any luck and then tried to anchor again with similar results.

We decided it would be best to try drifting the rock pile instead of anchoring and then started catching nice 20 to 25 pound halibut on almost every pass using live spotted bay bass.

I also caught a weird looking fish that looked like a rock and think it may have been a "toad fish." Very strange.

The halibut would only take live bait and at about 3:30 p.m. when we used the last of our spotted bay bass, it was time to head back to Puerto Penasco. It was another great day out on the Sea of Cortez with calm seas, sunny skies and great fishing.

The description for the California Halibut in the Fish Identifications section of Mexfish.com might need to be changed: "In Mexico, the California Halibut is only found north of Magdalena Bay on the Pacific side of the Baja California peninsula, and it is absent from all other Mexican waters." I guess we proved this wrong.

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