GOOD TUNA FISHING WITH CAPT. TONY MIRANDA

Feb. 3, 2007, Ken Murray, San Jose del Cabo fishing, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

I just got back from another great fishing trip in Los Cabos.

I fished 3 days with Capt. Tony Miranda and his new boat called the Hooker.

Our first day of fishing was January 15th from Palmilla to Whale Head outside Cabo San Lucas for marlin and dorado. We left from La Playita's new harbor for pangas; the rest is still not open. They are doing lots of digging and dredging. It is amazing to see what they have done there in the last few years.

We caught 2 dorado and released 1 small one. The biggest catch of the day was by my 14 year old son William, who caught and released an approximate a 140 pound striped marlin after about a 1 hour or more fight with 60 pound line with a 100 pound fluro carbon leader. He will remember that catch for the rest of his life!

I think we also hooked up a Mako shark while William was fighting his marlin, but it cut through the line. His two older brothers were very upset they could not come down to fish at Los Cabos this year, but they were able to catch a nice marlin last year in the same area as well as many dorado. I have never seen as many marlin that close to shore in our last 10 fishing trips down there.

Tony was able to get it to strike on live mackerel. They were very picky and were tough to get to strike the bait. We had one miss the mackerel earlier. It was great to watch it chase the fish and jump to try and catch it in midair. We saw some marlin jumping after bait and some others get caught. It is a shame that a lot of the other boats from Palmilla do not release many of the marlin they catch. Some were very small. Los Cabos fishing weather was kind of cloudy with quite a bit of wind. It never got too warm that day.

The next day was January 21st.

We left from Palmilla where Tony keeps his boat anchored. The winds were down enough to get out to the Gordo Banks for yellowfin tuna, the biggest of 6 tuna caught was approximately 60 to 70 pounds.

A sea lion was the biggest problem of the day. Lost 1 tuna and had to let the fish go deep to avoid the sea lion, and it took about 45 minutes to get it to the boat and seemed like a lot longer. I can only imagine what a big tuna would be like to reel in. They are unbelievably strong fighters. All our tuna were caught on chunk bait.

We also picked up 2 small dorados on the way back to Palmilla while trolling feathers and a small yellow and green squid jig. Tony's was definitely one the the most successful boats we saw that day, which is quite normal for him.

Our last day was January 25th.

Again we were able to go back to the Gordo Banks as the wind was down.

Tony drove his boat right past all the others and I thought we were going out to fish the Outer Banks, but since we did not have any sardines to catch chunk bait fish, we kept looking until we found some Bonitos and caught several bait fish while trolling small jigs.

When we got back to the Inner Banks we gave some to Chame in the Killer boat, but a bunch of the other boats had to go out and catch some skipjack for chunk bait while we started catching fish. We caught 6 nice sized tuna up to about 50 to 55 pounds and 1 red snapper, and of course William caught the largest fish after about a 45 minute fight. We actually had a double header going which would have been a triple but one busted off! We busted off a couple of other ones as well.

All our fish were caught on 40 pound line and 40 pound fluorocarbon leader with lighter weight rods, makes for a great fight.

The most exciting thing that happened was we hooked up and line was going out like crazy. Tony started up the boat and we chased down what we thought was a monster tuna, until we saw a whale surface out in front of our line. We were all pretty excited about that!

Both of our Los Cabos fishing days were very nice and sunny with very little wind. We saw quite a few other boats catching tuna around us but I'm sure we did the best out of about 10 or so other boats.

I met with Tony the last day before we flew back to Calgary, Canada, on January 27th and he was out to the banks again and caught 11 nice sized tuna. The day before he was out there and caught 4 tuna, one about 70 pounds.

We had to buy Mexican sportfishing licenses every day, which was great to see. Some people were complaining about the price but when you get world class fishing like that I think is more than fair.

After going down to Los Cabos and fishing down there about 13 to 14 times with a bunch of different boats and captains, we have been out with Tony the last 7 times with 3 different boats. All I can say is he is the best fisherman that I have seen. He is very intent on making sure that you get into fish and is not scared about working harder than normal to make sure you have a great day on the water. He is not worried if you screw up. It is no wonder he has won the last 2 fishing tournaments they have had down there. The guy just rocks. I cannot say enough good things about him and Eric Brictson from Gordo Banks Pangas that looks after booking your fishing trips. I would definitely recommend booking your trip with Tony if available, or Jesus and Chame, as they are very good fisherman as well.

Tony Miranda's fishing boat is a brand new super panga. With the motor Tony said it is almost 28 feet with a 150 Honda. He is putting a bimini top on very soon and will be putting a small porta potty in as well.