Baja Bytes Fishing – Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Que Pasa Baja

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Tijuana Bull Ring
Calico bass takes the prize for the best bite with lots of guys scoring limits of legal-sized bass up to five or six pounds. Barracuda are roaming from the kelp line out from a quarter to a half-mile following schools of anchovy…Fish Dope
Coronado Islands / Rockpile
On Monday the 22nd there were two or more yellowtail per rod average on the sports boats, and most private boaters came away with at least some, if not limits. There were also quite a few bass, barracuda and bonito caught.
The bulk of the yellows were just east of South Kelp, east of SKR in the Flats, and almost down to the Rockpile. If you want to try and avoid the crowds have a look at the Ribbon Kelp, Middle Grounds, and the weather side of North Island.

Flylined-sardine on 25-pound was the best choice followed by either sardine on a dropper-loop rig or the surface iron. As for color, any color works if it is mint. Forty-pound mono is recommended for fishing the surface iron; for sardine, 25 to 30-pound has been working fine.

Private boaters are doing best with bait. Those slow-trolling sardine or mackerel outside the fleet were having plenty of stops. Try slow-trolling bait on 30- to 40-pound with either no weight or with a 4- to 10-oz. torpedo sinker from four to ten feet up the line. Rapalas and Nomad DTX Minnows are getting a share also.

**** ATTENTION **** You must stay at least 250 meters (820 feet) away from any tuna pens. If you don’t you are at risk of losing your boat and landing in a Mexican jail. Click here for more details on this subject.
Heads Up: 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.

Border / Lower 9 / Coronado Canyon
Small numbers of yellowfin and some large bonito are still roaming around in the Canyon out west and southwest of the Coronado’s. Very “hit and miss” but they have been there for well over a week now. For the most part, they are running with the dolphin and not biting well unless you find a pod actively feeding with birds on it.

They are also beginning to settle in on kelp so be sure and check those out; you might get a few nice yellowtail, too. There are also schools of large 12- to 15-pound bonito in the Canyon jumping on trolled jigs and plugs and at times foaming on micro-bait. These “bones” are so large they are being mistaken for tuna by some boats…Fish Dope
371 / 425 / 475 Knuckle
This zone was quiet today. Not sure if it was a lack of boats or poor fishing or both…Fish Dope
San Salvador Knoll / 390
This area has larger bluefin and it might be your best bet for a “local” big bluefin.
All the reports of bluefin over the past couple of days in this area have been for fish in the 120- to 190-pound class.
There have also been some 10- to 15-pound yellowfin and yellowtail on various size kelp over the past several days.
What seems to be working best here is locating a sonar mark, setting up a long drift while chumming, and putting out a balloon/dead flyer. While that rig is out, drop a sinker rig down to the depth where you metered the tuna.
If you are flying the kite with a yummy flyer, you best have a couple of Nomad DTX plugs running too! Bluefin and yellowfin are both biting these this year. The sardine color has proven to be an excellent choice…Fish Dope

Below 32 00 / Hidden Bank / Upper 500 / West of Ensenada
This zone gets the award for being the most active along with the best odds of scoring offshore fish today. We received several reports of puddling, breezing tuna, both bluefin, and yellowfin, along with some yellowtail and a few yellowfin on kelp.

Reports of dorado on the kelp now that are just settling in and should begin to bite soon. You’ll probably need light line and small hooks to entice a bite and then you run the risk of hooking a bigger tuna.

The best numbers appear to be yellowfin and the bluefin, in general, are under 100 pounds in the zone. Most are between 25- and 70-pounds although some spots of 100-plus bluefin are being seen regularly. This morning the boats reported seeing bigger bluefin. They were single jumpers spread out over a wide area. They were next to impossible to get on and were not biting. The anglers stuck with them though and set up a long drift, and managed to get some of them to bite in slow, steady plunker bites on the larger, over 100-pound bluefin for guys fishing 50- to 60-pounds on the sinker rig. They also report having around 10 yellowfin and some giant 10-plus pound bonito.
The yellowfin are mixed in size. There are now some small 8-15-pounds units along with some better quality in the 20-40-pound class. Most of the yellowtail are of nice quality — some pushing 20-pounds. There just aren’t a lot of them. The dorado appear to be in the 8-to 15-pound range.
The tuna are being found in all the regular ways. Birds, puddlers, breezers, jumpers, some foamers, sonar marks, and jig stops. Also, be sure and check out any kelp you happen to find. Not all are holding but enough are that it means they are worth a good look. There are yellowtail on some of these BUT now some of the better kelp have some yellowfin and maybe bluefin on them as well.

Given the average size of most of the tuna, guys can get away with fishing 25- to 40-pound line, and that in turn might have also helped out in the number of bites the boats were getting. Be quick to rack that gear though if any of the bigger grade bluefin show up in the chum line…Fish Dope
Ensenada

West of Colonet
Over the weekend some of the long-range fleet fished this zone instead of traveling the extra 30- to 40-miles to fish west of San Martin.
They found mixed yellowfin and bluefin along with a few kelp that were holding some of everything. They had 20- to 35-pound bluefin, 12- to 25-pound yellowfin, and 6- to 20-pound yellowtail that were all biting along with 10-15-pound dorado that didn’t want to bite.…Fish Dope
San Quintin

Bahía Ascensión

A nice morning on the water on flat calm water and windless condition. We managed a mixed bag including 4 or 5 of these guys and a bunch of females of the same species, and a couple of different brands of rockfish, a couple of nice baqueta and one jumbo whitefish. It was a “freezer special” trip…Ross Zoerhof is with Daniel Powell.

Bahía de Los Angeles

Beautiful Bahia de Los Angeles … out fishing with my friend Rick Jensen and his son Ellis for an amazing two days fishing with veteran anglers with the vitality to cast all day long and then some. The first-day fish count: 100 leopard grouper and 50 miscellaneous; we kept 12 fish, released 138 fish;

The second day, the 19th: 100 fish with 88 released, we caught leopard grouper(cabrilla sardinera), yellowtail, barred pargo, gulf grouper, and triggerfish — all fish caught on surface lures. we use Benitos from Cudakilla Lee, they are amazingly versatile lures, all fish except for a couple of tails were caught on these lures on the surface.
Some fishermen are making the trip to BOLA but it’s not without its difficulties; some type of paperwork, like a lease or rental receipt, will get you through the health checkpoints, traveling through San Felipe is a good idea, and the road is in slant shape.

The season here is in full swing and there’s fish all over the area; it’ll be worth the effort if you can find a way down. Ok…fishonnn&onnn. Thank you…Juan Cook

Baja Sur-Que Pasa

Mayor J. Armida Castro Guzman welcoming the Bisbee’s Team back! 

East Cape Offshore a go for August 4-8th more info

Punta Chivato

Bulls only

We worked with our panga as the standby control boat. Everyone made it back safe with lots of fish caught! Even us, just out there standing by offshore. We caught 8 fish up to 15 pounds. No real toads like we got last year and we released all except two for the fish fry Sunday. Most were caught around Tortuga Island. We will update the winners tomorrow. Craig and Theresa Cove. Dos Luz. Panga

There were only 10 boats because of the world Covid-19 situation. It was canceled this year but at the last moment, requests brought it back to life. Thirty-one anglers came together for a great catch donating all the fish caught for the awards presentation fish fry.

Colin Won $2500 by buying his boat in the Calcutta. And Donated it right back to the Punta Chivato community. Jon Jenson Bought Mad Dog and won $1500 and did the same Donation. Jon is the official Photographer in the community … an all-around good guy who makes videos around Chivato.

We’re also entered on the boat Tidy Up. Craig And Theresa Cove

Loreto

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The chain and signs are down at the marina. The Malecon is getting some use by the walking crowd and the public beach was open for one day and is now closed again.
We have one fishing trip out today and if any good news comes from that I will let you know. Very few boats are out doing the sportfishing routine so far. Not many “out of towners” are here in the magic pueblo!
A continuation of the snapper wars in the rocks by Punta Colorado has yielded some 6-pound dog snapper and one monster.

The twenty-years I have known Juve, I have always thought that when he was a new kid to Baja, a dog snapper must have taken off with a family member. What else could explain his vendetta with those sea creatur
Yellowtail, dorado, or marlin, no big deal. He caught and released a 100-pound class roosterfish and that was a good stor
But watch out snappers! It is still snapper season in Loreto and some people know where they are hiding.
Broken lines and bent hooks won’t stop the snapper wars.… Rick Hill, Pinchy Sportfishing
06.22.20

Ted and I arrived yesterday after a two-stage flight. We had to spend the night at the Los Angeles Hyatt and both flights went smoothly with planes that were a third full and with everyone following safety protocols. Same with the hotel stay.
Today was the first day of fishing for the guides and I caught 3 Dorado right off the bat and soon after Ted nailed one. We saw one Sailfish jumping and there were only 3 pangas out all day and the sardines were easy to catch. Even though this was a slow start we’re hoping we arrived at the beginning of the Dorado “season.”
The ones we caught today were about 15 pounds. Glad I came…Carl Blackledge

La Paz

East Cape

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Water- Warming fast. 82- to 84-degrees, clear, blue flat water. Light afternoon breezes.
Air-Highs in the ’80s, cool mornings, blue skies, beautiful weathe

Our first week of fishing on the East Cape and as expected, the bite is on!!
Big yellowfin, big dorado, whopper gallo’s and lots of good-sized striped marlin.
A 222-pound yellowfin, a 52# Bull Dorado taken this week.
Caballito and Ballyhoo and Squid. have been the baits of choice.

Yellowfin-Lots around both inside and outside. Are very consistent bite inshore off the lighthouse and in Rincon bay. Lots of tuna in the 20-pound range, all within a mile of the beach. Taking mostly squid. Outside 20-40 miles, three or four schools
of porpoise are holding football-sized tuna to gorillas! A 222-pounder was taken with a kite. Limits of fish from 7-40-pounds. Outside cedar plugs, Rapalas, and a quite a few taken on squid, the big boy on caballito.

Dorado-Big bulls were taken this week on the shark buoys off Punta Pescadero. Light pressure, the first anglers on the scene are scoring big fish to 52-pounds. Live caballito, ballyhoo, and squid working.

Striped marlin-Plenty around. Off La Ribera, they are very concentrated. Boats releasing as many as 7. Big fish, Lots in the 200-pound range. Loving the ballyhoo.
Roosterfish- Some big fish. No fishing pressure. A couple of big Gallo’s in the 50-pound class released off the lighthouse. Big roosters cruising most Palmas Bay beaches.
A great start for our first week! This coming week should be stellar…John Ireland

Puerto Los Cabos

As of this week, the Los Cabos area has begun the reopening process, we have seen the first tourists starting to arrive since early March. This will be a slow process, following new safety protocols that are now in place.
Summer weather has arrived, typical warm sunny days, little cloud cover, slight breezes, and some increase in humidity.

Only a handful of fishing charters went out this week, mainly past regular clients, anxious to get back out on the water. Best action was found north of Iman Bank, near San Luis and Vinorama, this is where cleaner water was found in the upper 70’s, and caballito, mullet, and ballyhoo were available for bait. Anglers did well on yo-yo jigs as well.

Catches included red snapper (huachinango), amberjack, various cabrilla, dogtooth snapper, bonito, wahoo, dorado, and striped marlin. Most numerous were the red snapper, biting best early in the day. Only one or two wahoo reported. Other strikes were lost, same for dorado, and the ocean turned a bit off-colored for these species. Striped marlin action remained steady, but not wide open like in past weeks … fish were a bit more finicky.
Some quality, trophy-sized roosterfish were found along the shoreline; this is now peak season for these species, but please remember that these prize-fighting gamefish should always be released with care so that they can live and reproduce, and keep future stock healthy.

We expect some great action coming up and as we get farther into summer the yellowfin tuna should become more active on the local high spots; also soon we will see the black and blue marlin appearing.
Back in business…Eric Brictson, Gordo Banks Pangas

Cabo San Lucas

Fishing in Cabo takes off with a bang!
Billfish 77%, Tuna 8%, Other 62%

Seventy striped marlin released for Pisces in five days! This is our first week of charters since quarantine in March, and the fishing has not disappointed! All our boats caught fish this week …. 100% Catch Success rate!
Most vessels targeted striped marlin or roosterfish, which have been by far, the most productive. Stripers have been found on the
Sea of Cortez side mostly, out of Punta Gorda about 20 to 30 miles. Lots of mackerel bait there, along with some jack crevalle.

LOCATION: Punta Gorda, Tule, Close to Chileno/Santa Maria, Cabeza Ballena.
WEATHER CONDITIONS: Sunny skies mostly calm seas. Around 80 F.
AVERAGE WATER TEMP: 73 – 75 F
BEST LURES: Live Caballito bait, ballyhoo, mackerel, Rapala, chum.
Written by Rebecca Ehrenberg, based on the catches of Pisces Sportfishing

BOY on topwater!! Instant adrenaline rush when you see these guys come up and miss your lure twice before SMASHING it!! Comb up in the air, bucket mouth, and a whole lot of POWER behind them!!
This guy was safely released right after getting this awesome photo! Thanks @bigfinhunter  for a cool shot of this guy…Cabosurfcaster, Wesley Brough