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| Around 10% of the world's total fish species can be found just within the Great Barrier Reef. |
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| Starfish can re-grow their arms. In fact, a single arm can regenerate a whole body. |
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| Starfish do not have blood. Their blood is actually filtered sea water. |
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| Starfish don't have brains. Special cells on their skin gather information about their surroundings |
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| Not all animals with the word fish in their names count as fish. |
| Though their names may suggest otherwise, cuttlefish, starfish, and jellyfish aren’t actually fish. Generally-speaking, fishes must have skulls, gills, and fins. Surprisingly, though, not all fishes have proper spines. |
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| In three decades, the world's oceans will contain more discarded plastic than fish when measured by weight, researchers say. |
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| As of 2020, there were 34,000 known fish species around world. That’s more than the number of species in all other vertebrates: birds, reptiles, mammals, and amphibians combined. |
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| Just how man species of fish are there? |
| As of 2020, there were 34,000 known fish species around world. That’s more than the number of species in all other vertebrates: birds, reptiles, mammals, and amphibians combined. |
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| Even Catfish are finicky |
| Taste Buds ? Catfish have a more refined sense of flavor than humans. Our 10,000 taste buds may seem like a lot, but catfish can have as many as 175,000. This helps them find the exact location of their next meal. |
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| A bit of Humor |
| My brother has 2 German Shepherds named Rolex and Timex. You guessed it they are Watch Dogs. |
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From Jan 01, 1999 To Sep 22, 2025
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Dec 2, 2006; 02:54PM - Mixed Bag in December?
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Category: Saltwater Fly Fishing Reports
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Author Name: Gary Graham
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REPORT #1039 “Below the Border” Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996
Endless Season Update 11/25/06
East Cape
[img]http://www.bajafly.com/report/sansqd.jpg[/img]
[b]Bait or Steaks???[/b]
December is here and so are the north winds. The trick is to get out on one of the calm days, or at least as early as possible on the windy ones. Squid moved closer to home with good action out in front of the hotels early mornings. They are great for chum for either tuna or dorado, plus squid steaks taste pretty good back at the hotel!
It’s hard to believe that the billfish are still biting as well as they are. Even a few blue marlin, including the largest of the season, were caught last week. Most of the billfish action is strung out from Punta Pescadero to the 88, while the dorado and tuna action is down the other way outside of Cabo Pulmo.
Inshore, the sierra bite has begun in earnest and is best from gray light until the sun begins to come up. Also late afternoon in front of the hotels has been good for both sierra and ladyfish. Small olive Clousers are working well for the ladyfish and the sierra. If you tie your own, use long shanked hooks which will work almost as well as a wire leader. You will lose a few flies but will definitely have more takes.
Water temperature 74-84
Air temperature 60-82
Humidity 63%
Wind: NNE at 11 mph
Conditions: Partly Cloudy
Visibility 2 miles
Sunrise 6:44 a.m. MST
Sunset 5:32 p.m. MDT
Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico
After a week of cooler temperatures and wind, the wind finally quit and fishing snapped back for both dorado and marlin with most of the action reported up above the Thetis. However with fewer boats fishing, it is difficult to know what else is happening closer to Santa Maria.
Inshore, the grouper, corvina and of course the spotted bay bass bite was excellent on yesterday’s slack tide.
The Mexican Government is sponsoring a Wahoo Tournament on Dec. 8th and 9th at Lopez Mateos
PRIZES!
1st place: panga with 60 hp Suzuki 4 stroke motor
2nd place: $20,000.00 pesos
3rd place: $15,000.00 pesos
4th place: $5,000.00 pesos
5 -10th places: Penn rod and International reel
Entry is FREE
Water temperature 70 - 78
Air temperature 60-79
Humidity 66%
Wind: NNE 13 mph
Conditions: Cloudy
Visibility 6 miles
Sunrise 6:55 a.m. MST
Sunset 5:36 p.m. MST
Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico
The 80° blue water is at the Solitary Rock, only 1/2 mile in front of Zihuatanejo Bay. Averaging 1 or 2 sailfish a day per boat, we are having fairly decent action, because a few 15 to 25 pound dorado also making a showing.
The majority of the yellowfin tuna are still beyond the 1,000 fathom line at the 30 mile mark, but some football sized tuna (10 pounds) did show up for a couple of days only a mile off the beach in front of Ixtapa.
The inshore action is excellent. With Orlando on the panga Tequila, fly shop owner and guide, Scott Cook and his dad Glen, of Bend Oregon, fished two days inshore. Each day they accounted for several small jack crevalle, sierras, black skipjacks, grouper, and cabrilla. Glen also took a 40 pound rooster on live bait.
Yesterday (Saturday), they made the run down with me to Puerto Vicente Gro., to target roosters on the fly. Scott got his 30 pounder only about 10 minutes after we started fishing. When Orlando grabbed the leader at the boat, the rooster broke off, leaving us with only in the water photos.
Ed Kunze
Water temperature 74 - 82
Air temperature 62-91
Humidity 88%
Wind: Light
Conditions: Clear
Visibility 6 miles
Sunrise 7:01 a.m. MST
Sunset 6:10 p.m. MST
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Dec 1, 2006; 03:05PM - Gordo Banks Pangas San Jose Del Cabo
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: Eric
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November 12, 2006
Anglers –
Crowds of anglers continue to travel to the Los Cabos area and sportfishing fleets are operating at near capacity levels. The weather is absolutely ideal now, highs in the mid 80s, lows in the upper 60s, very little wind and calm ocean conditions. With the exception of Thursday when a moderate swell kicked up from the distant Tropical Depression Roy, the rest of the week saw little swell movement. Ocean water temperatures gradually dropped a couple of degrees, now ranging from 80 to 82 degrees. The majority of charters were catching fish and overall there was an impressive variety of gamefish accounted for, most common were yellowfin tuna, dorado, wahoo, skipjack and billfish. Live bait has consisted of caballito and sardinas and on the fishing grounds there were schools of small trolling sized chihuil, bolito and skipjack that were proving to be
reliable options for anglers targeting larger fish.
The Gordo Banks were producing consistent catches of yellowfin tuna ranging from 30 to over 100 pounds and with a few over 200 pounds also accounted for. Bad news is that commercial purse seiner activity has been noticed on the horizon and everyone is hoping that they remain the legal distance offshore and do not clean out these fishing grounds that have finally come to life after a long dry spell. The yellowfin on the banks were striking on sardinas best, with dead bait being better than live, fished in a chum line, as one would do with chunk bait. The average yellowfin in recent days being landed from the Gordo Banks has been in the 60 to 100 pound range, the numbers has not been huge, but the majority of the anglers targeting these larger grade of tuna in recent days have returned with one or two of them in the fish box. The bite for the medium sized yellowfin that are averaging 15 to 25 pounds and have been concentrated within one mile of shore from Red Hill to Punta Gorda has become less productive, there still has been lots of fish seen feeding and coming up on the chummed sardinas, the fish have been more line shy and harder to entice. Maybe the latest full moon may have effected the way the fish are feeding, this was an exceptionally bright moon, most likely the fish were feeding more at night, making them less active in the morning and then they seemed to go back on the bite later in the morning, at least this was the noticeable pattern towards the later part of the week.
Dorado were scattered throughout the same areas where fleets were finding yellowfin tuna, but not in any significant numbers, though some boats did land up to five of them, ranging in sizes up to 25 pounds, live bait was best, though of course a few were striking on medium sized trolled lures as well. Normal catches of dorado were more like one fish for every couple of boats. Wahoo numbers were even less, though early in the week anglers did find some good action on these speedsters near Iman Bank, which means they are in the area. Trolling with Yo-Zuris, Rapalas, Marauders and skirted lead heads all produced, once the schools were located, resulting in many multiple strikes. Sizes of the wahoo landed ranged from 25 to 55 pounds. The rest of the week produced very wahoo, but the backside of the full moon is never the preferred time for wahoo, so we are anticipating more consistent action in the coming weeks.
Billfish action for striped marlin was breaking wide open in areas on the Pacific, as the migration of stripers is now returning in full force from their northerly trek. Marlin were also found into the Sea of Cortez around the 95 and 1150 spots, not as many as in the cooler Pacific waters, though sizes were larger, including stripers up to 180 pounds. San Jose panga fleets reported quite a few sailfish mixed in with the inshore yellowfin tuna action, sails were weighing in the 50 to 100 pound class and were striking on live sardinas.
Other catches included roosterfish, pargo, pompano, rainbow runner, amberjack, sailfish, sierra and triggerfish. Though none of these species were numerous, with the exception of triggerfish.
For the week the combined panga fleets out of La Playita sent out approximately 223 charters, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 7 striped marlin, 22 sailfish (released), 5 roosterfish, 145 dorado, 495 yellowfin tuna, 18 wahoo, 25 pargo, 6 amberjack, 14 sierra, 8 pompano, 22 rainbow runner, 105 white skipjack and 140 triggerfish.
Good Fishing, Eric
GORDO BANKS PANGAS
Eric Brictson
Owner/Operator
800 4081199
Los Cabos 1421147
ericgordobanks@yahoo.com
www.gordobanks.com
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Nov 27, 2006; 12:04PM - Cabo Bite Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: George Landrum
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FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
Nov. 20-26, 2006
WEATHER: Once again we have had perfect weather here in Cabo. Our daytime highs have been in the low 80’s and our lows in the evenings and early mornings have been in the mid 60’s. We have had only occasional clouds this week and the winds have been very light for the most part. We did have one day, the 21st, when the remnants of Tropical Depression Sergio brought strong southeastern winds and seas of 5-7 feet. On the 22nd the wind was gone and the seas had settled down.
WATER: Our water has remained blue and warm this past week and it looks like it may continue through this next week as well. Everywhere you might have gone within a 30-mile radius the water was a consistent 81-83 degrees. Once you got more than 40 miles to the north on the Pacific side it dropped a bit, down to the 78.5-degree range, but it remained blue. On both sides of the cape swells early in the week were between 3-7 feet as a result of Sergio, but as of the end of the week the swells had dropped to 2-4 feet. On Saturday the wind started to pick up again and by Sunday it was pretty bumpy on the Pacific side, also there was a cool water eddy that was about 78 degrees that moved into the area from the southeast on the Cortez side and lay about 15 miles offshore.
BAIT: Once again there was a pretty even mix of Caballito and Mackerel available at the usual $2 per bait. A lot of boats set out without buying any bait and instead, if they were headed to the Golden Gate Banks they caught their own Mackerel and Mackerel Scad there. I did not hear if there were ay Sardinas available this week.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: While the water temperature and color has remained great for Blue Marlin, there were very few of them caught this week. The billfish of the week was Striped Marlin, and they were there in good numbers if you were in the right place at the right time. The main concentration of Striped Marlin seemed to be at the Golden Gate Bank, probably there because of the large amount of bait in the area. Best results came from dropping live bait down to 100-150 feet, just above the massed Mackerel schools. Most boats were able to get two or three fish released a day while a few boats were able to get into double digits. By the weekend the bite had dropped off a bit, on Saturday there were 45 boats on the bank with the results being a bit disappointing, on Sunday there were only 15 boats and only one hookup in the morning, the bite did improve a bit later in the day with the best result being four fish for one of the boats sticking with it. Elsewhere, there were fish found off of the ledge at the lighthouse and while they were coming up and striking on lures, they were not being real aggressive. There were more Striped Marlin to be found within 2 miles of the coastline on the Pacific side and a few boats were catching and releasing between 2 and 6 fish a day up at the Finger Banks. I received four strikes Sunday at the San Jaime Bank for two releases but they were both small fish, one about 75 pounds and the other maybe 50 pounds. Most of the Striped Marlin caught this week were smaller than 100 pounds, but there were a few exceptions.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: The Yellowfin bite that had been happening at the Gorda Banks tapered off this week. There were still nice fish being caught, but not in the numbers or in the size categories that had been happening the past few weeks. Scattered pods of dolphin to the south of the Cape had produced fish in the 20-35 pound class for those boats willing to go 30 miles, and there were also the same size fish found to the south of the San Jaime Banks, again among the dolphin. Spreader bars and daisy chains produced the best results while a live mackerel dropped back after the first fish hooked up produced the larger fish, some to 50 pounds.
DORADO: Still the fish of the week! Best results came from the Pacific side with most of the action occurring 25 miles up the coast. Slow trolling live bait or trolling bright colored lures at 8 knots were the best way to induce these fish to strike and watching for following fish to drop a live bait to resulted in many double hook-ups. Most of these fish were in the 15-25 pound class. Farther to the north, the Finger Banks continued to produce good numbers of Dorado in the 30 pound class to boats slow trolling live bait, as well as getting some action on Striped Marlin. A good day on the Finger was between 4-12 fish.
WAHOO: I only saw a few Wahoo flags this week and heard of a few fish caught over the radio. There was no concentration of fish and those that were caught were incidental fish.
INSHORE: There was only scattered inshore action this week with a few early season Sierra, a decent Red Snapper bite and a few Grouper and Amberjack. Most of the Pangas were working off the beach for Dorado and a few of them had really outstanding trips! It’s nice when you can go out and catch a half-dozen Dorado, a few Red Snapper and have a Striped Marlin as well and be back in by noon!
NOTES: Great weather and good fishing, it doesn’t get much better than this! If things change the slow way they have been, we should see the fishing continue to improve for Striped Marlin and Tuna over the coming month with a chance of continued Dorado action. Until next week, Tight Lines!
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Nov 20, 2006; 11:46AM - Cabo Bite Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: George Landrum
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FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
Nov. 13-19, 2006
WEATHER: With our daytime highs in the mid 80’s and the lows in the mid to low 60’s just about all I can say is that it is the perfect time of year! We have had only slight breezes this week and only two days with partly cloudy skies. We ended the week with no wind on Sunday, the morning temperature at 64 degrees and no clouds in the sky.
WATER: Tropical Storm Sergio brought some southern storm swells our way but they were not big ones, mostly 3-6 foot stuff. With a slight swell from the northwest and no wind on the water to speak of things were very nice on the surface regardless of where you went. On Sunday morning the water was like a mirror since there was no wind at all. Surface temperatures were an almost uniform 83-84 degrees within 40 miles of Cabo at the beginning of the week but they dropped by a degree or two at the end of the week. The water was a great blue color everywhere with very little green showing, where it did occur was close to the beach on the Pacific side.
BAIT: There was a pretty even mix of Caballito and Mackerel available this week at the usual $2 per bait. The Sardinas made themselves scarce and here in Cabo were very difficult to find. Up in San Jose they could be had for $20 a scoop instead of $20 a bucket, but there were a lot of boats that were happy just to get a handful.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: There are still some Blue Marlin around, but as the water starts cooling down they are becoming a bit scarcer. I had reports of fish to #450 being caught and released (congratulations Lin!) as well as a number of fish in the #200 pound class, but no really large fish this week. Instead, there has been a resurgence of Striped Marlin. One of the best bets early in the week was the area of the Golden Gate Banks where boats were releasing one to five fish a day while drifting with live bait, some deep and some on the surface. There were also a few fish taken with this technique off of the ledge at the lighthouse. The Finger Bank area is beginning to take off, I reported last week that there was a decent bite in that area and it has improved a bit. The bite is still mainly in the afternoon and the fish are a bit scattered since there are not a lot of bait balls in the area, but slow trolling with either live or dead Mackerel has been a great technique. A lot of boats were stopping at the Golden Gate Bank on the way to the Finger Bank in order to make bait.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: The Inner and the Outer Gorda Banks continued to produce large Yellowfin Tuna to #150 this week, but the average size was #80. It was basically an early bite and either dropping a live Sardine, slow trolling a bridled Skipjack or catching and slow trolling a Chilwilie worked. A few boats were able to get two fish but most of the boats were good for either one big bite or one fish in the boat. The key was to downsize the leader and go with flouro-carbon. There was a fair bite on fish averaging #40 at 35 miles to the south of Cabo at the beginning of the week and these fish were found under Porpoise. I got into some fish in the 30-40 pound range south of the San Jaime on Friday and Saturday after being invited to the party by a friend of mine. He had spotted a couple of the long-range boats out of San Diego in the area; the Shogun was one of them. I did have one pass on a group of fish that resulted in one reel getting spooled and all the other lines going off but loosing all the fish. Must have been some decent fish out there but we were not able to get any of them to the boat. I heard of some good fish being found up at the Finger Banks while slow trolling live Skipjack, but apparently there was a problem keeping the Dorado away form the baits so few of them were caught.
DORADO: The focus for great Dorado action continued to be up the Pacific side at least 20 miles. There were decent fish found closer to home but the numbers and size of fish to the north were worth the run for most anglers. For those willing to pay the fuel premium to get to the Finger Bank area, the results from slow trolling live or dead bait was worth the expense. Of course there were a few boats that were not in the right place at the right time, but most of them were able to get between 6 to 20 fish a trip. What was nice was these fish were averaging between 30-40 pounds! Close to the beach at the 20-mile mark the action continued to be good with fish in the 15-30 pound class providing consistent action. Trolling lures at fairly high speeds got the first fish to hook up, and then dropping back a live bait fooled a few more into biting.
WAHOO: I only saw a few Wahoo flags this week and heard of a few fish caught over the radio. There was no concentration of fish and those that were caught were incidental fish.
INSHORE: There was a good Red Snapper bit inshore for a couple of days early in the week but then the fish moved on. Most of the Pangas have been moving a bit more offshore since we have had very good sea conditions this week. Their concentration has been on Dorado. For those that have been working just off of the beach there has been steady, but not fast, action on Skipjack, Bonita and a few scattered Sierra and small Roosterfish. The best action has been on live Sardinas when they could be found; otherwise hootchies in red were the way to go.
NOTES: The bite continues to improve as well as the weather. If everything keeps up at this pace then we will all be very happy in a few weeks! Happy Thanksgiving wherever you may be and have a safe and enjoyable time with your friend and family! Until next week, Tight Lines!
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Nov 20, 2006; 09:46AM - We Give Thanks for Magdalena Bay!
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Category: Saltwater Fly Fishing Reports
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Author Name: Gary Graham
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REPORT #1037 “Below the Border” Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996
Endless Season Update 11/18/06
East Cape
North wind remained consistent this week. Despite the gusts, our guide, Lance Peterson, found good November action for roosters in off-color water. One client landed eight nice firecracker roosterfish in the 5-pound class and lots of smaller ones. Also, he tangled with a few jacks and more ladyfish than he could count. Live bait teasing was very effective as the roosters charged after the bait almost to the transom. There are still a few billfish being found early in the day north of Los Barriles about five miles off of Pescadero. There were both sails and striped marlin. If you were willing to make the long run south, there were plenty of YFT and a few dorado to make the trip worthwhile.
Water temperature 74-84
Air temperature 65-87
Humidity 89%
Wind: N at 7 mph
Conditions: Clear
Visibility 2 miles
Sunrise 6:34 a.m. MST
Sunset 5:33 p.m. MDT
Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico
Herds of dorado cruising under the boats and not a small fish in the bunch! Marlin gang-banging the teasers until the artificials are removed, and then pouncing on the flies that replaced them as though they were a Thanksgiving turkey. Welcome to Magdalena Bay in November. Guides and clients alike climb off the boats like zombies shaking their heads and mumbling, “I don’t believe it.” Action has been from below the Thetis to the Double 100s for the marlin and almost anywhere for the dorado.
In the esteros (estuaries), the action has been good as well for grouper and sierra. Our guest, Alan Hyman, managed to connect with a dandy16-pound snook on his last half-day of fishing. All-in-all it has been a crowd pleasing kind of week.
Water temperature 74 - 82
Air temperature 68-80
Humidity 88%
Wind: NW 8 mph
Conditions: Clear
Visibility 6 miles
Sunrise 6:44 a.m. MST
Sunset 5:48 p.m. MST
Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico
The 82° blue water has been fluctuating with the current all week. Today (Friday) the blue water was at 8 miles, but has been as close as 1 mile and out to 10 miles off the point at Zihuatanejo Bay. Most boats are raising 4 or 5 sailfish a day, and hooking 2 or 3.
Russ Kitchener of Indianapolis, fishing with Adan on the panga, Gitana II, had the best day locally, with 4 sailfish releases.
Adan's brother, Santiago, on the Gitana I, had a decent day with Myles Mcfarr. They first released a sailfish on conventional gear for Myle's wife, and then Myles released two sails on the flyrod. The real excitement kicked in when a nice blue marlin was teased in and ate the fly offering. The big blue stayed hooked for about 5 minutes, running out a million miles of backing, and then came unbuttoned.
Margarito, on the Gaby, made the 40 mile run South to Puerto Vicente, Gro., and had a great day with 3 sailfish and a nice 350 pound blue marlin.
Daily, with a 15 to 20 pound average, about 1 out of every three boats are also adding a nice dorado to the count.
Lots of jack crevalle are showing, and tons of black skipjack tuna. Fly casters are actually getting weary of catching 30 to 50 of these hard fighting fish a day.
Roosters are still scattered. The late season rains have the inshore waters a bit discolored, and each boat is only averaging 1 or 2 a day.
Ed Kunze
Water temperature 74 - 82
Air temperature 68-80
Humidity 88%
Wind: NW 8 mph
Conditions: Clear
Visibility 6 miles
Sunrise 6:44 a.m. MST
Sunset 5:48 p.m. MST
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Nov 17, 2006; 11:14PM - Whipping for Big Fish
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Category: Saltwater
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Author Name: Stan Wright
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The Pencil Popper was almost to the boat when the water exploded under it. The 40 pound GT ( Giant Trevalle or Ulua as we call them here in Hawaii ) was so close to the boat it splash water on Steve and me. This was the 7th cast Steve made this morning. He missed fish on his 2nd and 3rd cast, but as the 50 pound test line melted from the spinning reel, we knew this was a solid hook up.
Captain Steve Petras, a charter boat skipper from Kona was hooked into his very first GT. He had traveled to Christmas Island for just this kind of action. Big GT and Ahi (yellowfin tuna) on spin casting gear. If the first 5 minutes of fishing was any indication of what we could expect, it was going to be an exciting week.
Steve makes his own rods, and balances his reels, line, and lures to get maximum performance. I ask him what kind of gear one could buy off the shelf if they were visiting Christmas Island and wanted a chance at landing some 40 pound plus fish.
The spinning rods, according to Steve, should be from 6 to 7 feet long with a light tip and plenty of backbone. He mentioned the Ugly Stik, Penn Slammer and rods by Star.
For spinning reels, he suggested the big Shimon's. Stella, Sustain, and Stradic. The 8000 size ones. He was using the Stella. The kid has good (expensive) taste. LOL
Steve was using 50# test Power Pro line and an 80# test fluorocarbon leader (5 ft.) .
He linked it all together with a Bimmini Twist and a Double Uni Knot.
Now for the lures. Anything BIG. We started off with a Gibbs Pencil Popper, and a big black popper made in Hawaii called a Reef Ripper. As the week wore on the lure of choice was the Roberts Ranger in chrome. The Ranger is an East Coast bluefish lure. The 2 1/4 and 3 ounce size. Steve replaced the single hook with a 4-0 treble and one of those big heavy split rings. On my next trip, that's the only lure I'm taking.
After landing the 40 pounder, taking pictures, and releasing the fish, Steve hooked into an identical size fish 3 casts later. I made two cast and caught two Omilu (bluefin GT) weighing in at 8 pounds each. The Ahi were busting bait schools a hundred yards away, so we said... 'Why not!' Steve hooked a 40 pound tuna on his first cast. I quit fishing and picked up the camera. We had been fishing for less than an hour. Yes, the fishing is that good.
So here is Steve..... standing on the outrigger of this big canoe, rod bent almost double, line flying off the reel..... you should have the smile on his face.
We only fished together for two days. (I wanted to try bonefish and queen fish on a light fly rod) He ended up catching over 50 GT and Ahi ranging in size from 40 to 80 pounds. Not a bad weeks fishing. He could have landed a lot more if he hadn't removed the hooks from his lure so he could tease the fish in close to the boat, giving his friend a chance to hook them on a fly rod. (that's a whole nother story)
I first started fishing Christmas Island 25 years ago and I really believe the fishing is better today than it was back then.
Aloha,
Stan
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Nov 16, 2006; 10:28PM - Christmas Island Adventure
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Category: Saltwater
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Author Name: Stan Wright
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The fishing is better today than it was 25 years ago when we first started going there. They have no kill rules for bonefish and GT now. Catch & release only areas, no fishing areas, and a 5 fish a day limit if you do want to keep some of the other kinds of fish.
The big GT have really made a comeback. The 40 to 80 pounders are everywhere.
If you can't catch one in 10 casts, something is wrong. It was that good. We also caught ahi, wahoo, kawakawa, aku, sweet lips, red trout, and even a sailfish.
The bonefishing was better than ever. Each evening before dinner we would gather on the lanai for pupu's and drinks to plan the next days fishing. Teannaki, the head guide, would ask: 'What kind of fish do you want to catch? How Big?' If you wanted the bonefish over 6 pounds you went to the flats where the big ones are. One guy got an 11 pounder. The water was deeper, you caught less fish, but they were big. I chose the 1 to 2 pound size. Lots of fun on a light 5 wt fly rod.
One day I ask to catch papio. The guide took us to where the rising tide was spilling over a gravel bar. The bluefin and whites were every where. I would cast at a 3 pounder and a 1 pound one would race in and take the fly. Then a school of queen fish would come by and everyone would hook up. Fish jumping all over the place. After an hour of non stop action I had to sit down and rest. I returned to that place 3 times that week.
The best part was the new Villages fishing lodge. It's only been open 6 months and can handle 8 anglers a week. Two to a room. Air conditioning, and lots of hot water. It's located 30 minutes from the airport on the lagoon side of the island on the way to London. The boats..... ( 2 anglers, a guide, and boatman ) the boats pick you up each morning right on the beach at the lodge, and in 5 minutes your at a bonefish flat catching fish.
The food was all 5 Star. We started with a big breakfast. Eggs to order, ham, bacon, French toast, cereal, fresh fruit, juice. Then we made sandwiches for lunch. Water, soda, and beer was in the ice chest on the boat. Dinners were great. Sashimi every night. Usually a choice of a fish or meat dish. Lobster, giant clam, Mantas Shrimp, tako, pork, chicken, and fish. I can't say enough about the food.
Several evenings there was local entertainment, dancers & singing. The people are still friendly as ever.
Sean, at Nervous Water fly shop made all the booking arrangements for us. With tips and bar bill, I still came in under $3000. Not bad for air fare, ground transportation, hotel, all meals, guide & boat every day..... and some great fishing. We're already planning our next trip.
Aloha,
Stan
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Nov 13, 2006; 04:01PM - Chaos in the spreads
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Category: Guatemala Sport Fishing
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Author Name: The Great Sailfishing Company
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This fishing report is for the week ending 11-12-06 and is prepared by The Great Sailfishing Company which operates out of the new Pez Vela Marina, Guatemala.The fishing grounds for this past week varied between 15 miles to as far as 47 miles. Seas this week have continued to stay calm with sunny skies and light to no wind in the mornings.
Very good results continued this week with boats reporting raises in the teens to the low thirties,with releases also in the high single
digits to low twenties on conventional tackle and with some boats reporting 3 to 4 releases on the fly. We at the Great Sailfishing Company hosted several groups with one releasing 10 Pacific sails out of 13 bites.
At one point a little chaos broke out when they had a blue marlin and 4 sails in the spread. Cap´n Nestor directed the focus towards the Blue Marlin which aggressively pursued one teaser to the other teaser and on to the pich bait....... only to be finally beaten by one of the lit up Sails, at which point the commotion of two hooked up sails proved too much and he sank away from the stern...for next time.
Our Sunday charter wanted to target meat fish (we fish how you want to fish) and were rewarded with boating 7 nice dorado,5 yellowfin tuna and several mackeral along with releasing 2 sails. To register for our weekly fishing report and other information please click here: http://www.greatsailfishing.com/en/register.html or contact us at greatsailfishing@yahoo.com
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Nov 13, 2006; 01:04PM - Gordo Banks Pangas San Jose Del Cabo
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: Eric
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Gordo Banks Pangas
San Jose del Cabo
November 12, 2006
Anglers –
Crowds of anglers continue to travel to the Los Cabos area and sportfishing fleets
are operating at near capacity levels. The weather is absolutely ideal now, highs in
the mid 80s, lows in the upper 60s, very little wind and calm ocean conditions. With
the exception of Thursday when a moderate swell kicked up from the distant Tropical
Depression Roy, the rest of the week saw little swell movement. Ocean water
temperatures gradually dropped a couple of degrees, now ranging from 80 to 82
degrees. The majority of charters were catching fish and overall there was an
impressive variety of gamefish accounted for, most common were yellowfin tuna,
dorado, wahoo, skipjack and billfish. Live bait has consisted of caballito and
sardinas and on the fishing grounds there were schools of small trolling sized
chihuil, bolito and skipjack that were proving to be
reliable options for anglers targeting larger fish.
The Gordo Banks were producing consistent catches of yellowfin tuna ranging from 30
to over 100 pounds and with a few over 200 pounds also accounted for. Bad news is
that commercial purse seiner activity has been noticed on the horizon and everyone
is hoping that they remain the legal distance offshore and do not clean out these
fishing grounds that have finally come to life after a long dry spell. The yellowfin
on the banks were striking on sardinas best, with dead bait being better than live,
fished in a chum line, as one would do with chunk bait. The average yellowfin in
recent days being landed from the Gordo Banks has been in the 60 to 100 pound range,
the numbers has not been huge, but the majority of the anglers targeting these
larger grade of tuna in recent days have returned with one or two of them in the
fish box. The bite for the medium sized yellowfin that are averaging 15 to 25
pounds and have been concentrated within one mile of shore from Red Hill to Punta
Gorda has become less productive, there still has been lots of fish seen feeding
and coming up on the chummed sardinas, the fish have been more line shy and harder
to entice. Maybe the latest full moon may have effected the way the fish are
feeding, this was an exceptionally bright moon, most likely the fish were feeding
more at night, making them less active in the morning and then they seemed to go
back on the bite later in the morning, at least this was the noticeable pattern
towards the later part of the week.
Dorado were scattered throughout the same areas where fleets were finding yellowfin
tuna, but not in any significant numbers, though some boats did land up to five of
them, ranging in sizes up to 25 pounds, live bait was best, though of course a few
were striking on medium sized trolled lures as well. Normal catches of dorado were
more like one fish for every couple of boats. Wahoo numbers were even less, though
early in the week anglers did find some good action on these speedsters near Iman
Bank, which means they are in the area. Trolling with Yo-Zuris, Rapalas, Marauders
and skirted lead heads all produced, once the schools were located, resulting in
many multiple strikes. Sizes of the wahoo landed ranged from 25 to 55 pounds. The
rest of the week produced very wahoo, but the backside of the full moon is never the
preferred time for wahoo, so we are anticipating more consistent action in the
coming weeks.
Billfish action for striped marlin was breaking wide open in areas on the Pacific,
as the migration of stripers is now returning in full force from their northerly
trek. Marlin were also found into the Sea of Cortez around the 95 and 1150 spots,
not as many as in the cooler Pacific waters, though sizes were larger, including
stripers up to 180 pounds. San Jose panga fleets reported quite a few sailfish mixed
in with the inshore yellowfin tuna action, sails were weighing in the 50 to 100
pound class and were striking on live sardinas.
Other catches included roosterfish, pargo, pompano, rainbow runner, amberjack,
sailfish, sierra and triggerfish. Though none of these species were numerous, with
the exception of triggerfish.
For the week the combined panga fleets out of La Playita sent out approximately 223
charters, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 7 striped marlin, 22 sailfish
(released), 5 roosterfish, 145 dorado, 495 yellowfin tuna, 18 wahoo, 25 pargo, 6
amberjack, 14 sierra, 8 pompano, 22 rainbow runner, 105 white skipjack and 140
triggerfish.
Good Fishing, Eric
GORDO BANKS PANGAS
Eric Brictson
Owner/Operator
800 4081199
Los Cabos 1421147
ericgordobanks@yahoo.com
www.gordobanks.com
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Nov 13, 2006; 10:53AM - Cabo Bite Report
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Category: Mexico Cabo San Lucas
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Author Name: George Landrum
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FLY HOOKER SPORTFISHING
Captain George Landrum
gmlandrum@hotmail.com
www.flyhooker.com
Cabo Fish Report
Nov. 6-12, 2006
WEATHER: once again we had paradise type of weather with our night time lows in the high 60’s and our day time highs in the high 80’s to low 90’s with a fairly low humidity level. Almost every day was sunny with a few scattered clouds and light winds.
WATER: The Pacific side saw just a slight chop on water that ranged between 80 and 83 degrees. There was no really strongly defined temperature break, instead there was gradual variations with a plume of the cooler water coming in off of the west toward shore just to the north of the Golden Gate Bank. On the Cortez side of the Cape we had 81.5 to 83 degree water with no defined breaks as well. On both sides of Los Cabos there were slight swells at the beginning of the week and swells at 4-6 feet at the end of the week, most likely a result of a few areas of disturbed weather well to the southeast of us.
BAIT: Caballito and Mackerel were available at the usual $2 per bait and there were Sardinas at $20 a bucket, both at the mouth of the harbor and up off of Palmilla and La Playita.
FISHING:
BILLFISH: I didn’t hear of any really large fish being caught this week, but the Striped Marlin bite has started to pick up a bit. As far as the Blue and Black Marlin are concerned there are still fish out there, but most of them were averaging between 200 and 250 pounds, with an occasional fish in the low 400’s. As I said, the Striped Marlin bite has picked up a bit with a lot of boats finding fish off of the Golden Gate Bank while deep dropping live Caballito and Mackerel. An average of one to two fish per boat for the boats willing to stick it out all day was the norm, but there were boats that tried for hours with no positive results. Many of these boats were able to get a billfish after leaving the area and putting lures in the water. As with most fishing, tide change seemed to make a major difference. A few boats have begun to make runs to the Finger Banks on a regular basis, hoping to be at the spot when the Striped Marlin move into the area in force. So far the bite has been good, but not as spectacular as we saw last year. The bite in the middle of the week was in the afternoon after the tide change and the half-dozen boats at the bank reported releasing between four and 10 fish in an afternoon as well as being attacked by large schools of Dorado.
YELLOWFIN TUNA: There were still some school and football fish to be found in the San Jose area, ion the Inman Banks and just off the beach at La Playita, to be specific. These fish were biting on Sardinas after being chummed to the boat. In other areas the key was to find the porpoise and hope you marked Tuna under them on the depth sounder. There was a nice pod of Porpoise off the arch about two miles in the middle of the week and a few boats were able to get hooked up to fish in the #100 range by dropping live Mackerel down to 100 feet in front of the moving school. Most of the boats coming into the Porpoise were just pulling lures or trying to drop bait back behind the boat on the surface, but the deep baits produced while the shallow ones did not.
DORADO: The Dorado continue to provide action for boats fishing the Pacific side of the Cape with most of the action continuing to be 20 miles up the coast. Smaller lure in bright colors as well as slow trolled live and dead bait worked well with many boats coming in with limits of two nice fish per client. A few boats were able to score extremely nice fish in the 30-40 pound class when they came across floating debris such and pieces of lumber and strands of Kelp, but most of the fish were associated with current lines. The bite has gotten better at the Finger Banks as schools of baitfish have started to move into the area. Most of these fish are in the 20-30 pound class. The Dorado bite on the Cortez side of the Cape has been sporadic with most of the fish found being close to the shore.
WAHOO: There were a couple of days at the beginning of the week when the Wahoo started to make a showing up in the San Jose area, but that bite shut off just as quickly as it started. Elsewhere, there have only been a few Wahoo found, and they have been incidental catches.
INSHORE: Once again we have seen a scattering of Sierra showing up inshore and the Red Snapper bite has started to pickup as well. There are a few Roosterfish still around but I have not heard of any large ones lately. Most of the Pangas that have been working inshore have done best while using live Sardinas as bait and have had very mixed bags with Sierra, Red Snapper, Triggerfish, an occasional Grouper and a few Amberjack being in the cooler at the end of the day.
NOTES: Things are looking up as the water cools and the weather gets better. We are hoping that the bite continues to improve and finally go wide open on the Striped Marlin and that the Tuna start to show up in force. It’s hard to predict what is going to happen so I just report on what has been. This weeks report was written to the music of the Stray Cats on their 1982 self-titled album from Arista Records. Until next week, Tight Lines!
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