FISHING ON THE PANGA CELIA OUT OF TOMAS CANTOR'S MINJARES FLEET

Dec. 17, 2004, Paul Roos, San Jose del Cabo sportfishing, Baja California Sur, Mexico Report:

I fished Wednesday, Dec. 15, with fellow San Jose del Cabo winter resident Gene Story, a retired tackle store owner and fishing guide from Colorado, on Leonardo's panga, CELIA, out of Tomas Cantor's Mijares fleet at La Playita. He had done well several days before with Leonardo way up at the Iman Bank.

We had to wait until almost 7 a.m. for Leonardo to come back from Santa Maria Bay, to the south, with sardinas, and then took off north for a spot inside the Inner Gorda Bank where there had been some wahoo earlier in the week.

Several other San Jose del Cabo fishing boats were trolling sardinas or chihuil, and we trolled sardinas and caballito with no luck, and took off for the Iman Bank after half an hour.

We should have stuck it out!! The Iman was good color but had cooler water than the almost mid-70s that has been holding off the East Cape. This felt around 70-71 degrees.

After a couple of hours, we saw a big tuna, but it was very line shy and I finally hooked it on a small outfit with 20-pound and got broken off after a 100-yard initial run.

Leonardo's son had a nice dorado hook itself, jump twice, and exit the scene before the son knew he was hooked up and the line under and behind the boat. So much for the Iman Bank.

There were probably a dozen boats still inside the Inner Gorda, only about a mile or less off Punta Gorda, when we got back down there around 11:30. We hooked and landed a 30-pound wahoo around 12:30 which is usually the time most of the pangas are back on the beach. That was it for us.

The boats that stuck it out down off Punta Gorda had a nice mixed catch, on an average of a couple of football tuna, one or two dorado, about one wahoo per boat, and a nice show of cookie-cutter huachinango of around 6-8 pounds. While we spent a lot of time fishing, the patient boats did more catching. Que sera!

(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.