Baja Bytes Fishing – Tuesday, October 20, 2020
Que Pasa Baja California
Los Cabos Offshore awards over ONE MILLION DOLLARS again!
CABO SAN LUCAS, BCS, Mex. Oct.19, 2020 – The 2020 season of the Bisbee’s family tournaments continues even as the COVID-19 Pandemic swirls worldwide.
In the second event of the year, the Los Cabos Offshore marlin tournament shattered both attendance records and the total payout amount. The two-day event awarded eight of the 127 participating teams with its 769 anglers from around the world $1,457,000, breaking the enviable MILLION-DOLLAR mark for the second year in a row throughout its 20-year history.
The Bisbee’s LCO Tournament takes place each October in Cabo preceding the largest tournament held in Baja Sur each year – the Bisbee Black & Blue scheduled October 20 – 24, 2020.
The ongoing Pandemic has affected all activities including the Registration and the Weigh Station which were both moved to the API Cruise Ship Pier.
A link to the Captains’ Meeting video was sent to every team member, every captain, and every crew member, containing all the information in both English and Spanish that would have been covered live at past events.
Protocol required that face masks be worn and social distancing of six feet of spacing between every person was to be in place throughout the tournament. Only the angler and their catches could come to the scale, eliminating team photos. Award checks and trophies were passed out to the eight-winning teams at the Baja Cantina.
Winning Teams included:
Sporty Game– Team members Steve Kaiser, George Landrum, Captain Dan Lewis, Filipe Robles, Carlos Rodriguez, mate, and Jacob Rodriguez, received $837,816 for the Largest Billfish, a black marlin weighing 514-pounds.
Pocket Aces– Julio Fiol Galindo, Steve Hayashi, Mark Hinkle, Epigmenio Fiol Ortiz, mate, Captain Angel Salvatierra, and Jan Salvatierra Zamora, for Second Place received $293,544, for their 424-pound black marlin.
True Grit– owned by Jim Putman, along with Captain Tommy Neikirk and team members, Rey Aguirre, Boyd Decoito, and Kai Hoover, received $138,760 for the Largest Yellowfin Tuna weighing 228-pounds.
NsatiaBill- teammates Diego Apu, mate, John Chandler, Nick Chandler, Captain Ian MacAllister, Carlos Murillo, mate, and Bill Nesbitt took $59,670 for First Place Marlin Release.
Knot Workin!– Capt. Tito, Chad Carter; Brandon Hilley, Javier Marban, Ron Martinessi, Roberto Moran, Mike Timon, Second Largest Yellowfin Tuna $85,000.
Sea Angel- Gregory Angel, Austin Angel, Captain Billy Angel, Carter Angel Jason Berk, Joshua Louis Morales, mate, Johan Van Collar were the members of the Second Release Team and took $20,655.
Protocol- Captain Alex Rogers, Rob Boyatt, Jay Cheromcha, mate, Mike Damelio, Adam Edgington, Rick Wursterr took Third Place Release for $11,475.
Will 2 Win– Fernando, mate, Captain Nicolas Moreno, Elder Rosales, Jason Scheer, Lori Scheer, Jeremy Willer, and Kimberly Willer Owners for Third Largest Black Marlin, 320-pounds. $10,080.
The 40th annual Bisbee Black & Blue runs October 20 – 24 in Cabo in the pursuit of giant black and blue marlin for MILLIONS of DOLLARS in prize money beginning with Registration on Tuesday followed by three intense days of tournament competition. Live scoring can be found on all of the tournaments by going to Bisbees.com and clicking on the CatchStat Live Scoring link. The virtual Captains Meeting can be found on the same link.
For more information https://bisbees.com/News
Tijuana Bull Ring
In the Bullring area, the bonito bite has slowed quite a bit but if you focus on them you can still round up a jig stop or two along with some bait. The small mid-size Colt Sniper has been very effective. The surprise is that no one has caught any halibut. The primary zone remains from the shore to the Coronados in the flats…Fish Dope
Coronado Islands / Rockpile
Got a couple of reports of mixed-grade bonito today. One was from the weather side of North Island and the other was from the Middle Grounds. Both said the sea lions were brutal chomping on slow-trolled sardine. Neither one made mention of seeing or catching yellowtail…Fish Dope
226-302 / Coronado Canyon / 425
There are kelp paddy yellowtail and a few dorado, along with some signs of yellowfin, skipjack, and big bonito in this region but they are very widely scattered around and very hit or miss with more miss than hit.
Most are just blowing through traveling to the 371/390 zone…Fish Dope
390 / 371
This zone has become the “go-to” zone for kelp paddy fishing.
There are volumes of yellowfin, skipjack, yellowtail, dorado, and some big bonito. It isn’t slam dunk fishing, but rather it’s hit or miss, but when you find that “right one” it is game on!
That said it is entirely possible to get skunked or maybe score a couple of fish. There are quite a few kelps around and only about 40 to 50% of them are holding anything. Those that are could have anywhere from a few to hundreds of fish.
Besides, there have been some good jig stops on yellowfin, skipjack, and even open water dorado. Trolling through the areas with good birdlife has been productive for finding these open water schools of fish that have often been responding to chum after a jig strike on the usual natural cedar plugs and feathers, daisy chains in pink, Mex flag, zucchini, and black/purple are all working fine on the troll. It’s worth it to fish through skipjack jig strikes as you’ll sometimes find it turns to yellowfin after 10- to 15-minutes of skipjack eating your live bait.
The sport boats that have heavy chum capacity are doing well on some of the bigger schools but private boaters with smaller bait tanks can still keep fish around the boat with steady live chum mixed with dead bait chunks. Cast your hook bait right at the same time as you throw 2 to 3 live sardine as chum for your best bite rates.
Most of the yellowfin are on the small side from 5- to 15-pounds with an occasional bigger fish around 20 pounds. Dorado have been a little more mixed with lots of small ones. However, an occasional kelp will often have a few larger bulls up to 15- to 20-pounds. Yellowtail are mostly small from 3- to 6-pounds with an occasional standout in the 10- to 15-pound range.
The skipjack are running the same size as the yellowfin but there is a small number of very large “skippy’s” in the 20- to 25-pound class too.
Ensenada
This was color me red week for most…Maras Sportfishing
San Quintin
Great pictures! I like the tranx/sunrise pic and the bloody yellow on the scrambled egg the best. Looks like a fun weekend. Any story with the Mexican Navy? Looks like Captain Juan is back in San Quintin. I saw him with his boat just last week in BoLA. Was the drive back across all good? Did you cross San Ysidro on a Sunday? Crazy?
https://www.bdoutdoors.com/forums/threads/san-quintin-10-15-10-17.759109/#post-5259726
Bahía Asunción
It was a warm, overcast, muggy morning with spitting rain. I was anxious to get back out to an area where I had caught a tuna on the way in yesterday. I had passed through an area that had flying fish scattering in front of me like coveys of quail so I first wanted to do a little trolling in that area to see if a wahoo might be hanging around those flyers. I put the trollers in and after 1/4 mile I had a double hookup on bonito. While I was bringing one of the bonito in, it wrapped around the other line – very typical of my experiences with these trash fish. Suddenly the other reel started screaming. A big blue marlin came tail walking out of the water about 70 feet behind my boat. Apparently, he saw an easy meal of bonito and a Rapala Xrap and ate it in one gulp. Meanwhile, his original dance across the surface caused the braid to burn through the mono on the reel that I was fighting the bonito on. One Xrap was gone! The marlin continued his dance across the water sort of perpendicular to the boat. I’ve been seeing quite a few marlin lately and I tend to drive away from them because I’m just not that interested in catching them. Knowing I was outgunned with this one, I started to increase the drag after about 30 seconds of fighting. Plink! Xrap Number two was gone. Even after he broke off, he continued to tail walk on the surface and circled, coming within 50 feet of my bow, still trying to shake loose the Rapala, I guess. The whole episode once again proves that bonito are the bane of my existence. That was pretty much all of the excitement for the day. I had one more knockdown from a pretty big fish under some bait but it came unbuttoned before I could ID it.
One other oddity today. I trolled through an area where I caught a very nice yellowtail a couple of days ago and got this double – a calico and grouper.…Ross Zoerhof
Bahía de Los Ángeles
Thank God first for this complete and happy season of sport fishing thanks to the Captain, Juan Cook, for his skill and the quality of person he is; also an affectionate congratulations to the captain!…Igor Galvan Jimenez and Bertoldo Garcia
Baja Sur-Que Pasa
Loreto
The absolute best weather of the year has arrived in Loreto.
For the past few days the combination of chop and wind swell totals out to approximately 2 inches! The water has been like glass in the morning making the slightest fin ripple seem gigantic-gigantically exciting! The scuba divers report crystal clear water with 86 degree surface temperature.
I wanted to start off the report with the above mentioned items. As far as fishing goes we haven’t had much of a change in two months, maybe three!
The waters are choking with small dorado and as the days have been sliding into autumn the larger models are becoming more frequent. Cabrilla are hitting the fillet tables more with red and yellow snapper being most prized. Yellowtail are available at the deeper high spots with most fish under 20 pounds.
Roosterfish are completely ignored or avoided. If anybody has a 40 plus pound roosterfish on their bucket list now is the time and one day might be all you need to hit hat mark!…Rick Hill, Pinchy Sportfishing
Magdalena Bay
Marlin fishing has turned on fire. Striped marlin are feeding on bait balls – hot and heavy. There are cow-sized tuna sightings by divers right outside the bay, but none caught yet that I know of. Also, quite a few big blue marlin are lurking. We have lost two already, both in the 400+ range.
Dorado are abundant and wahoo are at the ridge and offshore outside the bay. We are catching and releasing large quantities of marlin every day with lots of dorado mixed in. There are wahoo here and there as well.
Bay fishing seems to be a little slow recently in the mangroves as the water is over 85 degrees…Magbay Lodge
La Paz
MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ FISHING REPORT from Tailhunter Sportfishing for Week of Oct. 10-17, 2020
East Cape
This is the 8th Annual Van Wormer Resort Tuna Shoot Out. Registration in the East Cape will be on Friday, October 23rd at Hotel Palmas De Cortez from 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. in the conference room.
The tournament format will be the same as the Dorado Shoot Out except this time it’s the Biggest Yellowfin Tuna that will win. The largest tuna caught on October 24, 2020, will win approximately $35,000 (based on 100 teams entering). This is a one-day tournament, so anyone can win! If you catch the heaviest Yellowfin Tuna on October 24, 2020, you will walk away with the cash. There will be over $100,000 in cash and prizes up for grabs including great raffle prizes, return trips including fishing, and much more. The entry fee is only $500 per team and includes dinner at the awards ceremony. Terrific prizes for the top three teams that catch the largest tuna. Optional Cash Jackpots of $300, $500, $1,000, and $2,000 with an 85% return rate.
Great drawing prizes of tackle, lures, rods, tackle boxes, gift certificates, and return trips to the Van Wormer Resorts. All participants will receive a free tournament shirt and hat
Download entry form Click Here
Download tournament rules Click Here
Puerto Los Cabos
Photo
On Tuesday morning, we received about one inch of rain, more than what was originally forecast though as the weather front passed through by mid-morning, we did have charters that went out fishing that day. Otherwise, it has been clear with slight swells and little wind. The ocean water temperature warmed back up after the cooling trend, and now it is back into the 87-degree range.
Local fleets were mostly fishing the grounds from the Gordo Banks north towards Vinorama, with the main bait source being sardina, as well as slabs of squid also being used. Despite ideal ocean conditions most days, the all-around action was more hit or miss. Perhaps the sudden warmer water put the fish “off the bite.” It’s hard to say, as it could have been the added pressure. The main catch we saw was dorado, with most of these taken while trolling and weighing in the 5- to 15-pound range. Very few wahoo have been landed, but we did see a handful brought in with most in the 20- to 40-pound class hitting on trolled Rapalas. As the water temperature drops back to near 80 degrees, we expect to see much better activity on these sought-after gamefish.
We did see a few nice yellowfin tuna topping 130 pounds brought to the scales, and a couple of cows taken during recent tournaments were over 200-pounds. Most of the tuna we are seeing are in the 50- to 70-pound class, though even these have become more elusive in recent days. Most of the tuna were taken on sardina, though the larger bait has also been used for a chance at the cows. The Gordo Banks produced a few of the larger tuna, though more charters are trying their luck on the Iman, San Luis, and Vinorama grounds where action has been more consistent.
Off the bottom, a handful of nice dogtooth snapper, cabrilla, and amberjack was accounted for; however, there has been no consistent action to speak of and the numbers were limited. Billfish action was spread out; we saw more sailfish than anything else, but a few much larger blue and black marlin were in the area, and we saw a few of them weighed in during recent tournaments. The largest was the 593-pound black marlin taken by the legendary La Playita pangeros, Hugo Pino, who also caught the winning yellowfin tuna weighing 236 pounds during the same event… Eric Brictson, Gordo Banks Pangas
Cabo San Lucas
Not only has it been great fishing in Cabo, but it has also been the start of the Tournament Season. Numbers have been holding steady with a 92% Catch Success Rate for ALL boats, with dorado still making up for most catches, and lots of them; 75% of the boats caught dorado for a total of 1,040 fish! Of course, this includes release numbers, and as always respecting their size and catch limits.
It was not uncommon to see vessels return to the docks reporting 20 dorado each, as was the case for 3-year-old angler Jorge Cooper, Jr., and his family who fished on Pisces 31’ Tiburon who caught 20 dorado, released 10 and released a striped marlin as well. From there, 32% of boats caught billfish, 59 released (mostly striped), but a few blues and some sailfish. Tuna accounted for 12% of the catches with 52 fish, and 15% other fish, including roosterfish, grouper, and skipjack.
That Baja Guy-Gary Graham
Photojournalist
http://www.thatbajaguy.com/
Cellular (760) 522 3710