Bajabytes Sport Fishing Update July 5, 2023
Baja North
Upper 9
Although the squid was wiped out by a flotilla of commercial squid boats, the calico bass bite has improved. Most are shorts, but there are a lot of them! The rockfish action on the Upper 9 is excellent, especially with the live squid. Big bocaccios, Mexicans, and reds are chomping on the squid! …Fish Dope
Coronado Islands
Up until today, barracuda have been the best biters. The lee of South Island and the spots below remain the best bets for these 4- to 8-pound barracuda. Surface iron is the ticket! Allow it to sink a bit, then rewind it at a medium speed and a 45-degree angle. When you get a bite, keep on winding! Do not set the hook!
But having said all that, the barracuda bite today was not particularly good. Must have been a down day?
There are some yellowtail around, but they are playing hard to get. Sports boats with a ton of chum are getting some, but private boats are struggling. If boat traffic allows it, we currently recommend slow-trolling sardines or mackerel. Put bait out about 75 to 100 yards back with no sinker. Then put a second one out on a shorter line with a 10 to 16-ounce sinker to get it down to around 50 feet.
Look along the weather side of North Island and the Middle Grounds to the Gun Site. The weather side of South Island is worth checking out, too.
Calico bass are biting great on the boiler rocks in the Middle Islands area. Just throw swimbait up to the rocks and rewind them at a slow-t0-medium speed. Fish a very tight drag and be ready to pull hard, or they will rock you in a heartbeat! …Fish Dope
Ensenada
Lots of barracuda is the word we got for local action.
They are being found as jumpers, under birds, and on anchovy bait balls.
They are showing in Todo Santos Bay in the lee of the Island and up the coast a bit in the Salsipuedes area.
Trolling Rapalas will get you all you want. Throwing surface iron into the bird schools will work well, also.
There are a few yellowtail with the odd seabass mixed in with these barracuda.
At Punta Banda, there have been some signs of seabass late in the afternoon and evening. There has also been good calico bass fishing in the boiler rocks on swimbaits. …Fishdope.com
San Quintin
Still mostly bottom fish for the few anglers who are fishing. …Eduardo Garcia Gonzalez
Bahía de Los Ángeles
Mr. Aska. Okay. How big was it? …fishonnn…Captain Juan Cook
South (Baja Sur)
Ascension Bay
Anglers are dusting off their gear and sharpening their hooks as fishing is picking up here, with some yellowtail showing outside the Islands. Kayak anglers are catching nice calico, halibut, and corbina while moving closer to the beaches for shore fishing. The weather is perfect, with daytime temps of 75 to 80 degrees, but the water is still around 60, which is normal this time of year. …Shari Bondy
Mulege/Conception Bay
This will be my last report for Mulege until late September, as I am heading to Ensenada to beat the heat. I will keep you posted on the other locations I fish over the summer.
We headed outside of the bay in search of some dorado and yellowtail to freeze for up north. Both of my sons absolutely love to eat fish. We accomplished that goal.
We trolled first with jet heads, cedar plugs, and two other plastic skirts. We found a line of sargasso (kelp paddies) in a current break. All of the dorado you would want, along with lots of skipjack! They were not super big, but I know some giants have been caught over the last week. After catching our limit of dorado, we headed to my favorite high spot for some jigging. Both Knife Jigs and Flat Falls hooked up immediately right off the bottom. We were fishing Catch 22 and MILF Jigs. Yellowtail were very healthy and fat. You could see the fat in the meat – a delicious grade!
We lost about 5 fish and lures as the fish were right off the bottom, and you had to turn them fast with a heavy drag. Until next time amigos. This report was sponsored by Casa Concepcion, MILF JIGS, and Ray Marine…Nathan Burbey
Loreto
The arrival of the full moon slowed down the dorado hunt and shifted our focus again to roosters. My boat partner caught around 14, and I caught a few more. They were mostly small fish, but I got two over fifteen pounds, and we plan to return to the same spot tomorrow. We found a lot of sargasso patches, but “nobody was home,” so when the moon starts to wane, we should be back to normal. …Carl Blackledge
La Paz
https://youtu.be/voPSdIwxoik
MEXICAN MINUTE LA PAZ FISHING REPORT from Tailhunter Sportfishing for Week of June 27-July 4, 2023
East Cape
The Roy Clark Billfish tournament arrived right after the FS&B tournament departed. And they continued to have great fishing for their three-day event, with 24 anglers fishing for three days in two-person teams. They landed 1 swordfish, 4 blue marlin, 49 stripe marlin, and 1 dorado weighing in at 51.2 lbs….Van Wormer Resort
As July kicks off things here are heating up. We had the first hurricane of the year pass by us. It stayed well offshore but did provide a couple days of very hot and muggy weather as it entered the area and as it passed it brought a day or two of strong winds and even a little rain to the area. It was a welcome site to see a little moisture.
The weather is typical for this time of year with high temperatures in the low 90’s and low’s in the mid to upper 70’s with about 60% humidity daily. We are starting to see the typical later afternoon rain showers in the mountains. They rarely reach town but when they do they are a nice break from the heat.
The offshore fishing has been good. In the area of Los Barriles we have seen scattered dorado along with good fishing for marlin. The tuna schools that were very active a couple weeks ago are still here but have moved further off shore making the run over fifty miles at times. They didn’t bite very well this past week. Most of the boats that found them only got a few. The action for tuna was definitely slower this past week. I’m sure it will pick back up after we pass this full moon.
If you were looking for dorado and marlin then you were in luck. We have had scattered dorado in the area of Los Barriles providing some good action. A lot of the dorado have been larger males up to fifty pounds. If you’re looking for numbers of dorado then you needed to head North.
I heard about some spectacular action for dorado to our North so I took my son and a friend to go check it out. We jumped in the car and headed North towards La Paz. We jumped on a boat in search of the action. It was not long until we found action. We pulled up to the first buoy, and threw a little bait that we had caught on the way out. The dorado came to life. They were very active and we got a couple hook ups right away. As more boats arrived the fish got smart and we’re not as willing to bite so we left in search of another spot. After checking a few we finally found what I had heard about. It was incredible. This school kept us busy for the rest of the day. My son was able to cast to, hook, and land his first fish on a fly rod. He was having a blast catching them on fly as well as top water with a spinning rod. It was a great day…Jeff DeBrown, The Reel Baja
Puerto Los Cabos
Like clockwork, the tropical storm season is arriving along with the new month of July. We saw the development of Hurricane Adrian some 300 miles to the southwest of Cabo San Lucas. Although it did not amount to much besides increasing ocean swells up to three meters or so. Then we followed the formation of Tropical Storm Beatriz off of mainland Mexico. This system was unpredictable as to the path it might follow. However, it never impacted southern Baja and dissipated offshore Puerta Vallarta. Beatriz kicked up the humidity to its highest levels this season. Some scattered rain showers were felt closer to Cabo San Lucas on Sunday, but nothing to report so far out of San Jose – scattered cloud cover, but seas were fairly calm, and no Port closures were implemented.
Ocean temperatures are now in the 80 to 85-degree range, swift currents were running at times, and swells were up and down due to tropical disturbances from the south. The tropical season is here now, and it is really starting to feel like it in recent days with the intense humidity.
Anglers were finding main bait supplies of caballito, jurelito, some mullet, ballyhoo, and slabs of squid. Also, more bolito and baitfish are congregating on offshore grounds. Most fishing action is found from near the Iman to San Luis Banks.
Anglers found a mix of bottom and surface action. Customary practice was to try bottom action early in the day, where a combination of red snapper, yellow snapper, dogtooth snapper, leopard grouper, fortune jack, amberjack, bonito, and other great-eating species were found. Using yo-yo’s jigs was the best bet, but various bait fish were also used. No substantial numbers of any fish and success varied daily and over different rocky high spots.
These same grounds produced a handful of sailfish, striped marlin, some quality bull dorado to over 40 pounds, and a couple of stray wahoo strikes, but trophy-sized dorado were the highlight. Again, no significant numbers, but a fair chance of catching a couple of quality fish. These prized fish were striking on trolled lures and various available baitfish, with bolito being one of their favorites.
We weighed an 89-pound yellowfin tuna hooked on the Iman Bank early in the week. During the rest of the week, the tuna proved very scarce, though, on Saturday, an estimated 200-pound yellowfin was hooked on the San Luis Bank with a bolito for bait. The angler battled the fish for two hours before losing it at the boat near gaff. The crew had a good look at the fish, but it was not their lucky day.
A few blue marlin are starting to bite farther offshore on the normal billfish grounds. Inshore action was scattered, primarily for roosterfish, but they were not found in the usual high season numbers, and more are now being encountered along beach stretches farther north. Still, there is a good chance of finding up to 50-pound roosterfish.
NOTE: Be careful when handling these prize-fighting gamefish, and after taking your photos, quickly release them into the water! .…Good Fishing, Eric
Cabo San Lucas
Hunter Hensley fought and landed a SWORDFISH on Pisces 62′ Chasin Tail yesterday! But wait!!! THERE’S MORE – Anglers Larry Bale and Hunter Hensley released an approx. 300-pound BLUE MARLIN and landed a 50-pound YELLOWFIN Tuna, too.
The Sword took a ballyhoo cast from the bow at the hand of deckhand Ulises. Hunter fought the Swordfish for just under two hours before getting it to the boat! Plus, Fresh Tuna sashimi and Pacificos on the way to the dock, and the team weighed it in at 213 pounds.
Congratulations to the anglers and our awesome Chasin Tail crew on a once-in-a-lifetime fishing day! …Pisces Sportfishing
