ROOSTERFISH CAUGHT BY PALMILLA PANGUEROS

July 11, Bob Grimes, San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico Fishing Conditions and Report:

For a day or two at the end of the week before last, there were good concentrations of dorado, with a few wahoo and small tuna, near Punta Gorda. It didn't last long, and now there are some fish around, but scattered offshore and up and down our coast.

There was a pretty good run of roosterfish for a while. The pangueros from Palmilla don't have their gill nets out now, but while the roosters were running a couple of weeks ago, a number of Palmilla pangueros were killing 6 or 7 each per day.

I have seen one of their capitanes kill 10 roosterfish or around 20 small dorado in a day.

Most of the gringo fishermen are pretty ignorant, and leave it up to the capitan to decide what to keep. It would seem to be real easy to put a couple of signs at the headquarters of all of the Sportfishing launching areas in BC pointing out that it is illegal to take more than two dorado or two gallos per person, etc. It is not necessary to confuse the gabachos by pointing out ridiculous and unenforceable laws against carnada viva, etc.

The seizure of the longliner with its palangre was of course big news among the mexican pangueros at La Playita. They know that for years the commercial operations have been illegally undermining their livelihood. Dr Carlos Villavicenio of th UABCS has played an important role in bringing attention to destructive and illegal practices of mexican commercial fishing operations. These days the mexican media has been running an occaisional story on his message. For example, the front page story of El Peninsular of July 3 2004 had the title "Criminal Depredacion de Dorados en el Pacifico". It quoted Dr. V on the corruption and mismanagement of agencies including the Instito Nacional de Pesca and Conapesca, which he described as "los principales promotores de depredacion del dorado". Meanwhile, of course, the commercial fleet is poised to try to eliminate everything that swims in the Mar de Cortez. Asi estan las cosas.

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