Cabo Fish Report April 27 – May 4, 2015

[CaptGeoParticipant]

FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com http://www.flyhooker.com http://captgeo.wordpress.com/
Cabo Fish Report
April 27 – May 4, 2015

WEATHER: No rain again! I don’t know why I am happy about that, we always need rain, but instead we had these terrible sunny days with early morning lows in the high 60’s to low 70’s and daytime highs ranging from the high 70’s to high 80’s. Boring stuff when it is every day, all day. Just joking! It has been wonderful this week, the only issue we had was the wind which started showing up good on Thursday afternoon and blew strongly every day since then, coming from the northwest at first then from the south mid day Friday and all day Saturday. On Sunday it started coming out of the west-northwest again.
WATER: It was interesting on the water this week to say the least. We began the week with medium swells that grew in size as the weekend approached. The early part of the week we saw swells at 2-4 feet with surf at the normal 5-6 feet on the Pacific side. Near the end of the week on Thursday they started to pick up and on Saturday we had swells at 6 to 9 feet from the southwest with surf running 12 to 15 feet. This was a result of a strong storm off of South America, it is expected to have tapered off the the 3-6 foot range by Wednesday. The combination of large swells and strong winds resulted in the Port Captain closing the port on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday it was closed to small boats such as Pangas, but the larger cruisers were allowed out. This morning it was open to all vessels, but I saw a few cruisers returning quickly with seasick passengers.
Water temperatures on the Pacific side were 71-72 degrees while the temperatures directly off the Cape were in the 67-68 degree range. As you continued on up the coast toward the East Cape the water slowly warmed until it reached a 77-78 degree area off of the Vinorama area. Clarity in all areas was a bit off, but particularly from the beach to two miles out on the Cortez side of the Cape, where the strong swells stirred a great amount of detritus and sand when pounding the beaches. The currents were also ripping this week with very strong currents from the northwest along the southern portions of the Pacific side and very strong currents from the southwest from San Jose and north on the Cortez side.
BAIT: Due to the swells there were no Sardinas available from mid-week on, and the amount of Caballito was down as well. What bait was available was the normal $3 each, and there were plenty of frozen local ballyhoo at $3 each.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: The number of Striped Marlin being seen improves day by day, but the number being hooked up still remains low. Low is a relative term, and by that I mean compared to the numbers seen, the hookup ratio is low. Having said that, the bite has improved quite a bit since the last report, with most of the boats fishing for them getting hooked up and quite a few of those boats (actually the large majority) getting at least one, often more than that, to the boat for a release. These large swells may bring even more fish to the surface as they ride the face of these and perhaps the bite will get even better! I can’t wait until we start seeing every boat with multiple releases! Meanwhile, the best bite was found from straight off the arch to the 1150 Spot, much of it happening along the temperature change on the east side of the cool water plume. Live bait thrown in front of tailing fish was the number one hook up method, and live bait dropped back to fish attracted to lures in the trolling pattern was number two.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: There was no change in the Tuna situation this week. Maybe the Yellowfin will show up in our area soon, but this week was once again extremely slow here in Cabo. The fish that had been showing up off of the Punta Gorda high spots were reported as having an off time early in the week, but just as the winds and swell picked up there were a few reports of decent action a bit farther offshore, between Punta Gorda and the 1150, out around 20 miles. That action was short lived however as the surface conditions became a steady “victory at sea” event. Putting it another way, there were so many sheep in the field you could not count them all!

DORADO: There were still some Dorado being found, and I guess it is not a big surprise after all as the water on the Cortez side is warm enough for them to stay. Not a lot were caught, but a few of them were decently sized in the 20 pound class. There were quite a few smaller 8-10 pound class fish compared to the larger ones, and the luckier boats managed to get two or three. Most boats did not luck out though, and did not get a strike. I was told that the boats that did get a few of these great eating fish found them under working Frigates, always worth checking out!
WAHOO: I was fairly surprised when we did not see many Wahoo early in the week, normally we get a half decent bite just before the full moon. Of course the best bite always occurs three days before the full moon, and since tonight is the full moon that should have been the past three days. However….the swells have really stirred things up close to shore and that is where the majority of Wahoo are found, along the rocky points and drop offs. Usually a few larger fish are found in the open water, but I did hear of any in the later part of the week.
INSHORE: The week started out getting a bit better for inshore fishing as a number of decent Yellowtail in the 15-25 pound class were found in deeper water (150-300 feet), and they were biting on live bait just off the bottom. There were a few Grouper as well and an occasional school of Amberjack would move in for a quick visit. Small schools of Sierra were being found along the beach on the Pacific side and anglers working for them in 75-25 feet of water were getting from 6 to 15 fish per trip. On the Cortez side there were schools of small Roosterfish running from 3 to 10 pounds and they were attacking live baits, but most of the live bait was too large for them to munch on! Well, the bite was decent early on, but then the winds and then the swells came to visit and suddenly the bite went to nothing, then the boats were not allowed out. Sometimes that happens!
NOTES: I am going to start posting the report on Mondays instead of on Sundays from now on as we seem to be having more trips on the weekends and I like having the best information possible to share with you. The more anglers who get out, the better my information is. The fishing pressure is still light, so if you want to get on the water there is plenty of room! I offer fishing charters for people with any type of experience on the water at reasonable rates, and service is the name of the game to me!
My music of the week is Craig Chaquico on “Fire Red Moon”, this album is on fire with the blues!
The information I use in these reports are obtained in many different ways, some from personal experience, some from my clients and Captains who are out every day, and some from on-line subscription services such as Fish-Track, BuoyWeather and SurfZone as well as HurricaneZone. I, and only I, am responsible for any errors made, as I sift all this information and compile it.

Thank you very much for checking out my report, and if you would like to book a charter, check out http://www.flyhooker.com, I have just re-vamped the web site , it is still under development, but there will be new photos, articles, tips and techniques every week starting next month.
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Meanwhile, Tight lines!

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