San Jose del Fish Report June 5 - 11

[Gordo Banks]

June 11, 2006

Anglers –

As we now near the official start of the summer season the weather is warming up with each passing day. Though the humidity has not been that high yet and the days are actually fairly comfortable with highs in the 90s, with more than enough sunshine for even the most die hard sun worshippers. The winds from the north all but diminished this past week and ocean conditions were ideal on the Sea of Cortez side of the peninsula. Water temperatures were up to 82 degrees in the areas from Red Hill to Los Frailes, though on the Pacific it was down in the 60s and continued to be very choppy. Sportfishing fleets have been concentrating most of their efforts in the direction of the calmer and warmer waters, from the 95 spot to Vinorama, even the cruiser feet from the East Cape, Buena Vista have been making the long run south in search of action. Depending on where your charter launches from, there was a mix of mackerel, mullet and sardinas for bait, most of the time the supplies were adequate. Though no particular species of fish was overly abundant there was a good variety of species being caught, catches included striped marlin, sailfish, dorado, wahoo, yellowfin tuna, bonito, roosterfish, dogtooth snapper, yellow snapper, jack crevalle and sierra.

Lots of bolito are now moving onto the fishing grounds and these baitfish are attracting larger gamefish. Many anglers have been caching the bolito on small hoochies and then using them to troll with. This technique was very successful for striped marlin, as well as dorado and a few yellowfin tuna. The marlin bite dropped off some this week, but many charters are still landing multiple marlin per day. Sizes on the stripers averaged in the 90 to 140 pound range. A handful of sailfish up to 100 pounds were also mixed in on the same fishing grounds as were the marlin. Dorado were more numerous than they have been, charters were averaging anywhere from one to four per day, most of the fish were in the 5 to 20 pound class, though some nicer sized bulls weighing from 25 to 50 pounds were also accounted for. More of the do-dos were striking on baits, but a smaller percentage was also hitting trolled lures.

Wahoo were still hit or miss, anglers were fortunate to catch one of them, the areas from Cardon to Vinorama seemed to be the best spot to try for these speedsters recently, the hot lure was the Yo-Zuri Hydro Mag in either purple or orange, though they also were striking skirted lead heads. Of the wahoo landed most of them were weighing from 25 to 50 pounds.

There was a good yellowfin tuna bite reported on the Pacific earlier in the week, the fish were small, 10 to 15 pounds, striking on the troll, but the ocean conditions were very choppy even for the larger boats. Some tuna were also found spread out in the other direction, but they were not consistent and the majority of them were also smaller football sized fish. A few yellowfin in the fifty-pound range were hooked into by trolling with larger live baits in the area of San Luis Bank.

Along the shoreline there were dogtooth snapper and roosterfish eager to test anglers skills. The numbers of roosters are increasing, but still have not peaked, they can now be seen chasing bait in the surf line, very exciting to watch the surface explode in white water of frantic mullet with thrashing roosterfish attacking from underneath.

The combined La Playita panga fleet sent out approximately 85 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 8 wahoo, 42 striped marlin, 5 sailfish, 170 dorado, 84 yellowfin tuna, 65 yellowtail snapper, 16 dogtooth snapper, 22 sierra, 110 Mexican bonito, 15 jack crevalle and 32 roosterfish.


Good Fishing, Eric