GORDO BANKS TUNA FEEDING ON PELAGIC RED CRABS

May 8, 2005, Luis Duhart, Palmilla Bay Sportfishing, San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico Report:

We had beautiful weather this week. The fishing conditions are great and marlin are all around from Punta Ballena to Palmilla, about 10 miles off shore.

Our charter fishing boats went mostly to the Inner and Outer Gordo Banks where there was a lot of yellowfin tuna, large like 120 pounds, but lots of small pelagic red crabs, or langostina, so you could see them jumping and eating but hardly biting on sardinas, mackerel, chunk bait, or any kind of plastics. So very few were caught this week, and some broke the lines. There was lots of pargo and cabrilla biting, and most of the fishing action was centered on that, as the days went by with no tuna biting.

We had Judy and Nick Bellino from Escalon, Calif., going out of San Jose del Cabo for two days and they were of the few who caught tuna. They went fishing with Capt. Mingo on the 2 Hermanos panga and caught a 50-pound yellowfin.

We also had Ted Noll of Rescue, Calif., who went fishing with Capt. Gustavo in the panga Cristine and caught several pargos.

Some of our San Jose del Cabo charter cruisers fished for marlin, and six in total were caught, the larger being of about 150 pounds, and five of them were released.

The tuna are here in the San Jose del Cabo vacation area, and hopefully will be biting next week. There are also some small schools of dorado, but very small and very scarce.

The bait is mackerel and sardinas from La Playita, and the fishing activity is good. The water is beginning to heat up and I can say the tuna fishing season has just started.

(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.