Baja Bytes Fishing – Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Que Pasa Baja California
Outpost Charter, Marina Puerto Escondido produces 377 -pound Blue Marlin.
Of great interest and excitement to larger sport fishers and yachts is the recently discovered offshore fishery that is out of reach of the traditional panga fleets in Loreto, That area has produced extraordinary large game fishing, i.e., yellowfin tuna, black, blue, and striped marlin, as well as swordfish that no one believed existed until recently.
Complete Story click here
Coronado Islands / Rockpile
Bonito are scattered around the Islands but yellowtail fishing is on the slow side. There were some caught on the Middle Grounds earlier last week by slow trolling sardine. Calico bass are also biting in the Middle Islands area and along the lee side of both North and South Islands.
Good chance they are biting at South Kelp too…Fish Dope
226-302 / Coronado Canyon / 371 / 425 / 390/ Upper Hidden Bank
Tough. This zone has all but dried up. There are a few fish around but it takes some luck along with some skill to get them as there’s lots of dead empty water. There’s not a lot of kelp and most of those are dry. The Pens have dried up as well. Water temps are dropping – 71 degrees F on the 302 but only 67 degrees F on the 371. It’s a chilly 64- or 65-degrees on the Upper Hidden.
That said, it is still possible you might find kelp holding a few dorado, yellowtail, and maybe yellowfin, skipjack, or big bonito.
Also, it is possible to get a jig stop for any of those…Fish Dope
Ensenada
Tuna and dorado liven up this week’s catches for the visiting anglers…Maras Sportfishing
Southwest of Ensenada / 295 / 238
The overnight fleet is split between coming down here or running out west to the Butterfly. The boats that are coming down are scoring good numbers of dorado and yellowfin. In many cases, they get full limits of both. It is not slam dunk fishing though. In many cases, it depends on finding that one magic kelp, although a few are reporting good jig stops as well.
Most of the dorado are coming off kelps although the boats are also getting a few open-water dorado jig stops. The reverse is true for the yellowfin. Most are coming off jig stops, but some are on kelps too.
Most of the yellowfin are falling in the 6- to 10-pound class with a small number of the 20- to 25-pound stuff. The dorado are running in the 4- to 6-pound range mostly. A 10- to 12-pounder is a big one… Fish Dope.
San Quintin
Wow! Super fishing today with Captain Juan Cook for a lot of yellowtail, rock cod, and lingcod! It was very good fishing and a super day thanks to God… Maricela de Cook
Another nice day on the water. I headed over to Chorros early with plans of heading to the 24-Fathom spot later. That’s where the locals got a bunch of yellowtail the day before. Turns out I never left Chorros because there was plenty of action there. There were some big schools of yellowtail cruising around the area. There were basically two flavors of fish – ten pounders and over 35-pound bruisers. I easily landed 6 or 8 of the smaller ones throughout the morning but only went 2 for 5 on the big guys. There was a lot of grass in the water, so I was unable to troll, which meant it was jig fishing only. I got rocked by two big fish, losing two more of my Deadhead jigs.
One fish was particularly memorable. I hooked up about mid-column and I never gained an inch of line on this brute. A 60-pound outfit with buttoned-down drag and this fish pulled my boat around like it was a kayak! A lost fish can be a big as you want it to be, but I have little doubt that this one would have been a new personal best.
Here’s an interesting footnote regarding my day of fishing today. I ended up keeping three yellowtail today; I gave away one to a guy at the launch ramp. The other two I gave away to a friend of mine. This friend told me tonight that when he cleaned the yellows, they were plugged with market- sized squid. I have seen some of the larger variety of squid around here – the 12- to 16-inch models, and I have caught tuna that would cough up some tiny 2-inch models, but I’ve never seen the size that are sometimes prevalent in Southern California. I was fishing in 81-degree water today which makes it even more imponderable…Ross Zoerhoff
Bahía de Los Ángeles
I can’t deny it; I am fascinated by this little town and its people. My family, a big group of friends, and I went down for the weekend, we fished for two days, and caught limits of yellowtail, plus a couple of groupers…Lourdes
https://www.bdoutdoors.com/forums/threads/bola-9-18-9-21.757194/
Baja Sur-Que Pasa
Loreto
It is the right time of the year for sierra to start showing up but that remains to be seen. The dorado are still thick along the coastline and inside the numerous bays. Catching is easy with most fish getting released back into the water to grow a few feet longer. I am surprised we aren’t choking up our outboard motor’s water pumps with small dodos and baitfish! We have had consistent success for bottom fish with snapper and pinto bass. Firecracker yellowtail have been hitting bait rigs aimed at the bottom on the way down and on the return.
Shallow rock piles have been good for triggerfish and cabrilla. Just outside the mouth of the arroyo is a favorite spot for the Zaragosa-based fishermen. It’s close and it’s productive. Most of the boat trips are happening at the end of the week. The scuba and snorkel boat trips still outnumber the fishing trips. The days are getting shorter and the nights are cooler. However, the midday sun is and will continue to be lethal until Thanksgiving…Rick Hill, Pinchy Sportfishing
La Paz
MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ FISHING REPORT from Tailhunter Sportfishing for Week of Sept. 17-24, 2020
East Cape
Few pics from last week’s action, lots of fun, and we are having good times! Anibal Miranda, Van Wormer Resorts
Puerto Los Cabos
The first day of fishing with my good friend Captain Augustin “El Brujo” Pino, on his panga “Raha.” We load up on sardina and head north. We make a quick stop at the inner Gordo, only to find a lobo patiently waiting for us. The lobos presence makes us join the rest of the panga fleet at Imman bank. For this first day, we just want to get on some fish and feel the pull. The tuna had been biting pretty well off Iman Bank. We arrive and start chumming with sardina and get two out. Immediately we get bit off by a wahoo. Within 20 minutes, we’ve hooked into and landed two skipjack tuna…tunastuna
https://www.bdoutdoors.com/forums/threads/panga-fishing-los-cabos-cow-tuna.757651/
The yellowfin were more finicky, becoming wise to boat pressure and also gorging on the plentiful food supply they found on the local fishing grounds. Anglers were using lighter leaders and small hooks with more success. Iman Bank was the main spot this week, as sea lions took up residence on the Gordo Banks which made that impossible to fish. Drift fishing was the technique, and the fish were biting better later in the morning. Locals were also commercial fishing in the late afternoon and doing better than the morning charters, but also coming back in very late – not a normal charter deal. The yellowfin ranged in size from 10- to 80-pounds with most fish being in the 20- to 60-pound range. Average catches per boat varied from one to five fish.
Very few dorado or wahoo were found, though these fish are in the area and we were seeing some landed, just one here or there. They were mostly small dorado, and we saw wahoo to 35-pounds. These fish become sluggish when water temperatures reach as high as 86 to 88 degrees, as they are now. Clean blue water now as close as a mile from shore, so really anything could happen on any given day.
Last week we saw more numbers of nice-sized dogtooth snapper than we had seen in several years. This action was on the Iman Bank, though this week that action quickly faded out. Not much off the bottom, a few varieties of snapper, a handful of cabrilla and Almaco jacks.… Eric Brictson, Gordo Banks Pangas
Cabo San Lucas
What a catch (and release)! Shortbill spearfish landed on Pisces 31’ Tracy Ann yesterday. The fish hit on one of our favorite lures out on the Pacific side. What’s your favorite lure and have you ever caught a spearfish?! It’s quite the prized catch in Cabo waters.
Cabo looks like this! The dorado are still coming through consistently, with Pisces 42’ Sea Señora landing 10 in one day this weekend, and Pisces 35’ Bill Collector 2 with Captain Juan Lopez at the helm, landing 7 dorado (releasing 3).…Rebecca Ehrenberg, Pisces Sportfishing
