Baja Bytes Fishing – Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Well here we go, as the Baja Sur Government flings open the sportfishing door with 16 pages of restrictions. The good news the fish are ready to play. RESTRICTIONS IN ENGLISH
Baja angler anticipation is high! Stand by…
Que Pasa Baja
Pause button for sportfishing in Baja Norte is technically still on hold.
Tijuana Bull Ring
Calico bass fishing continues to be good and is even improving along kelp at Bullring. As always, it depends on finding some current running along the coast and pushing in slightly toward the beach. There are also still some barracuda around and biting along the kelp lines, but the big schools out in open water chasing anchovy haven’t shown as well the last few days.…Fish Dope
Coronado Islands / Rockpile
There are still some schools of yellowtail biting around the islands. The South Kelp Ridge area and up to the Lighthouse continues to be one of the better areas especially in the morning, but you’d do well to get out away from the sport boats and their heavy chum lines and sea lions. The afternoons have also seen some good flurries and big schools through the Middle Grounds and around the south end of North Island.
Many of these schools have some 12 to 15-pounders with a few bigger and a few smaller. They’re eating surface iron, yo-yo iron, and flylined sardines – it’s mostly just a matter of matching your gear to how deep you find the yellowtail holding in the water column. Bass and barracuda fishing are also good at many of these same spots, especially the South Kelp Ridge and Middle Grounds. Bonito are sprinkled here and there throughout the islands.
HeadsUp: The Mexican Navy has been at the Coronado Islands over the last few days and has occasionally been checking boats as they return to San Diego from the offshore grounds. Nothing to be concerned about as long as your paperwork is in order.
302 / 371 / 425
There continue to be some small scattered wolfpacks of larger 130-200+ pound bluefin scattered around mainly from the 230 to the 302.
Many kelps are dry but there are a few scattered around holding good numbers of 8-12-pound yellowtail and even an occasional 10-15-pound dorado. Flylined sardines are working ok, and you can also throw surface iron and stickbaits. 20-25 pound test line will get bit better but there have been very occasional bluefin on some of these kelps which is why you’ll want to stick to a little heavier gear.
Heads Up: There are a bunch of tuna pens and boats 2 miles north of the 425.
Please use extra caution especially at night so you don’t accidentally run into a pen or between a pen and the boat it’s tethered to. Got word that the Mexican Navy was down in this area today (Saturday)…Fish Dope
Hidden Bank / Upper 500
Bluefin didn’t bite quite as well this morning but they are still in the area. It started to pick up a little better into the afternoon. Weather conditions continue to improve after the miserable wind on Saturday.
The tuna is showing as meter marks from 80 to over 200 ft deep and are eating sardines fished on a rubber band sinker rig dropped down closer to that 200 ft. zone. Stick to 50, 60, or 80-pound gear for this with a 3-4 ft fluorocarbon leader and a small size 1 or 1/0 Mustad circle hook (Owners are much bigger for a given size so you’ll need to go even smaller if using those). Flat Falls on 80-130-pound leader are also working ok, mostly in the early morning and late evening but very occasionally during midday too.
The bluefin here have been mixed in size, with some 25-40 lb. grade mixed with 60-80-pounds and some 100-130-pound grade.
There are small wolfpacks of bigger 150-200-pound bluefin too, so be ready to fly a kite or helium balloon with a dead flyer on your drifts. The 100-130-pounders will gobble this up too…Fish Dope
Rosarito Beach
Whale left stranded on beach in Rosarito
A 24-meter whale that became stranded on a beach in Baja California will be buried nearby, a municipal official said. The whale, estimated to weigh seven tons, arrived Friday on the beach in Rosarito, near the La Jolla condominiums. Luis Felipe Figueroa said the whale will be buried to avoid decomposition of the body in the open air.
Punta Banda Ensenada
Huge “to me” Calicos right off the rocks!! Cooked fresh on the beach!! Raul de la Vega
San Quintin
Kelly Catian recently reported that when the weather permits. The local banks are loaded with 15-20-pound yellows. That are biting jigs…Juan Cook
Bahía Ascensión
This memory popped up on Facebook. Surprised me, I knew I caught some tuna in June last year, but I thought it was later in the month. Yesterday I covered 70 miles of water on my little tin boat and found no reason to put the lines in the water. Cold green choppy water. Today I went the opposite direction and at least found blue water, albeit not as warm as I would like, with a good bit of life but still no biters…Ross Zoerhof
Bahía de Los Angeles
Fished with my friends Hunter Dago his wife Lupita and friend Jose. The tide was right for seabass fishing so we went north and fished Mostrador reef, nothing big but we went 6 for 9 hook ups and one yellowtail, next, we tried casting for cabrilla, just a few with one golden to fill out our day with Dago…fishonnn&onnn, Juan Cook
Baja Sur-Que Pasa
Beaches, hotels, restaurants open with reduced capacity in Baja Sur
Monday is a momentous day for the tourism-dependent state of Baja California: hotels, restaurants and beaches were to reopen after being closed for more than two months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Hotels and restaurants were given the green light to reopen at reduced capacity to ensure that guests and diners can keep a safe distance from each other, while beaches in some parts of the state will have limited opening hours.
The mayor of Baja California Sur’s premier tourist destination, Los Cabos, said that hotels, restaurants, and department stores can operate at 30% capacity starting Monday.
Loreto
We’re still hanging on for a sign of getting back to “business as usual”. Now is the time of the summer when the dorado tournaments should be rolling up and down the Baja coast. The only events going on seems to revolve around collecting the chocolate clams in the sandy shallows. The commercial guys haven’t been seeing dorado around their high spots. They work a limited area so that info only adds to the more questions.
Good news? I’ll have to see for myself what the current lines outside can tell me.Water temperatures should be close to perfect. Floating green stuff isn’t hard to find along the coast. Whenever the gates fly open the question will be, “what do we attack first, rock piles or blue water?”.…Rick Hill, Pinchy Sportfishing
La Paz
…Jonathan Roldan, Tailhunter International
East Cape
Van Wormer Resorts is very happy to announce that Hotels Palmas De Cortez and Playa Del Sol, as well as fishing charters will be reopening starting on June 15, 2020. To book your trip to the East Cape, please call our reservations office at 877-777-8862. We look forward to seeing you soon!
https://vanwormerresorts.com/web-special/191/covid-19-update
Puerto Los Cabos
We have heard that on Monday, June 15, authorities will be opening certain locations and businesses to the public. This will be a slow process, based on a light system, we have been in stage red, will now go to orange, then yellow and eventually to green. Confusing, but at least it is a start, encouraging, finally some beaches and hotels will be opened, then restaurants, marina activities, etc. All with limited capacity at first and under strict health protocols. We believe that within a couple of weeks that sportfishing will be officially reopened.
Los Cabos Hotel Association has received the Safe World Travel Seal from the World Travel and Tourism Council, this is an honored achievement and will most certainly help with the return of tourism to the Los Cabos region.
The limited fishing now being done by locals for personal consumption has been going well, lots of striped marlin off of San Jose del Cabo, water temperatures over 75 degrees, also some quality yellowfin tuna to 90 lb. and a few nice 40 lb. class bull dorado appearing, as well as roosterfish and various bottom species. So things are looking promising, as far as favorable conditions and quality of gamefish, for when we do receive the green light for sportfishing…Eric Brictson, Gordo Banks Pangas
Cabo San Lucas
Striped Marlin. The Striped Marlin named “Marlin 2” was originally tagged aboard one of the vessels (Andrea) operated by Tracy Ehrenberg at Pisces Sportfishing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and recovered in Costa Rica. The recovery was reported to the Fish Office at Marina Pez Vela. Two of the greatest fishing destinations in the world coupled with two of our valued GFR Research Centers brought together by one fish. Thank you, Marina Pez Vela and Pisces Sportfishing for your commitment to our program and ALL you do for us.
https://grayfishtagresearch.org/marlin-2-striped-marlin-recovery/#more-63581
Pisces Sportfishing Fleet
Captain Gil Castro and crew aboard Pisces 35’ Bill Collector 2 headed out today to run and check their boat and decided to try their luck… back by 9:30 am with these beauties!
The guys stayed close by for these catches but saw a few other vessels on to their third or fourth Marlin release only 2 miles out… Needless to say, the crew are more than ready for their first charter (since quarantine in March) tomorrow!!
And yes, even the crew stop to take pictures at the Arch when they haven’t been out in so long.
We are operating at limited capacity for the time being, following protocols and procedures from port. Depending on the size of the vessel, your party may be limited to a certain occupancy. Please speak to your Reservation agent for more details…Rebecca Ehrenberg, Pisces Sportfishing
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