BEST PANGA ACTION FOUND FROM IMAN BANK TO GORDO BANKS

Oct. 10, 2004, Eric Brictson, Gordo Banks Pangas, San Jose del Cabo sportfishing, Baja, Mexico:

The weather has been ideal, sunny days up to 90 degrees, very little wind and minimal ocean swells, all making for very comfortable San Jose del Cabo fishing conditions. Water temperatures ranged from 80 to 85 degrees and clear blue water was found a couple of miles from shore.

This week the most common catches at San Jose del Cabo were that of dorado and yellowfin tuna, but there were also a respectable numbers of wahoo, sailfish, striped marlin and blue marlin being hooked into. Sportfishing fleets were fishing areas from Chileno to Iman, with the most consistent action being found from the Gordo Banks to the Iman Bank.

Live bait did become scarce, particularly the sardinas, which had been so plentiful off of San Jose del Cabo, now with increased crowds anglers were having to wait up to an hour for only minimal quantities of the preferred live bait.

For the yellowfin tuna and dorado bite it was worth waiting patiently for the live sardinas, they were the bait of choice for hooking into more numbers of fish. Most pangas were averaging anywhere from 5 to 12 fish in combination per morning. The average yellowfin tuna was weighing 15 to 25 pounds, but each day there were some tuna weighing 50 to 70 pounds accounted for, and at least one went over 100 pounds, the majority of these larger tuna were coming from the Gordo Banks by anglers drifting with chunk bait. Yellowfin were found throughout most of the San Jose del Cabo region, most of the within several miles of shore, the area close off of Punta Gorda had a strong showing of the tuna in recent days, as well as good numbers of dorado and a few wahoo. Dorado were found in small schools as well as in larger concentrations, they would hit various trolling lures, but more fish were hooked on bait, sizes ranged to over 40 pounds, with average size fish ranging 10 to 20 pounds.

After having encountered one of the better wahoo bites in recent memory last week, the San Jose del Cabo fishing pangas had to search harder for these prized game fish. They were still finding limited action for these elusive speedsters, some panga anglers that specifically targeted this species with there arsenal of high speed and high dollar specialized trolling lures accounted for as many as three of four fish per day, sizes on the wahoo ranged from 20 to 50 pounds. Many San Jose del Cabo anglers were getting bit off by 'hoo while fishing with light monofilament while targeting tuna or dorado, the problem was if they switched to wire leader then they could not buy a bite. Some anglers are now starting to experiment with trolling chihuil for wahoo, but so far the fish have preferred either trolled lures or the smaller live sardinas. Within a couple of weeks we will look for the chihuil to become more effective, especially as the numbers of sardinas become more limited.

The cruiser fleet reported fair action for blue marlin up to 250 pounds off of Chileno and north to Desteladera. Striped marlin and sailfish were also being hooked into daily. With the big buck billfish tournaments just around the corner most certainly there will be more teams out scouting where the big ones are.

(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.