Warm water stalls Winter's arrival

Endless Season Update November 23, 2010
REPORT #1234 "Below the Border"
Saltwater Fly-Fishing reports since 1996

Zihuatanejo Sampler
East Cape

Current weather reports point to some wind in the next few days; however, excellent weather continued this week providing good fishing both offshore for billfish, striped marlin and sailfish, that seem to be enticed to remain in the area enjoying the warmer sea temps. Anglers targeting the billfish continue to enjoy multiple shots almost every day.

Tuna action is less reliable with most of the fish being found with porpoise schools but they are definitely not as aggressive as a few weeks ago.

Inshore action includes smaller dorado, large wahoo usually in the early morning. Fishing along the shore, both by boat and by walking the beaches, is producing sierra, roosterfish, pargo and pompano.
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Current East Cape Weather http://tiny.cc/EastCapeWeather303

Magdalena Bay, Baja Mexico

Earlier in the week, the sea temps cooled off slowing all of the offshore action dramatically. Farther down near Tosca and out toward the pinnacles seemed to produce the best billfish action for the yachts fishing the area.

Inshore the esteros action produced multi-specie days consistently, with some quality-sized corvina, as well as a few better quality snook weighing in the 10 to 20 pound class with more lost than landed. .…Bob Hoyt

Current Magdalena Bay Weather http://tiny.cc/MagBayWeather150

Zihuatanejo, Mainland Mexico

Early in the week the 80° blue water moved in to within about 8 miles of the beach, with most fish being taken between the 10 and 12 mile areas. It has moved out a bit again, to about 15 miles, but the fishing is still holding well for dorado, sailfish, blue marlin and striped marlin.

Cheva, on the panga Dos Hermanos, is finally back at the helm. He was off for almost two months due to a ruptured Achilles tendon operation. As that is how the injury happened, it sure looks like his days of playing soccer are over. He got a couple of striped marlin for his clients, several dorado, sailfish, and lost two large blue marlin this week.

Early in the week, Mecate on the cruiser Aqua Azul, lost two huge blues, with one estimated at over 450 pounds. He did release a couple of sails and got a nice dorado yesterday (Thursday) for his client Mike Garrett of Malvern, Arkansas.

Mike Bulkley emailed me this report for Francisco on the super panga Huntress:
Sunday-two sails released
Monday-two marlin, two sails, four dorado Ken Hill from Utah
Tuesday- one sail and one dorado
Wednesday- one sail
Thursday- two Sails

Inshore action is still doing well for jack crevalle, sierras and dorado only a half a mile off the beach. .…Ed Kunze

Current Zihuatanejo Weather http://tiny.cc/zihuatanejo582

Cabo San Lucas

The largest marlin I heard of this week was a black that was caught around the 1150 area and weighed in over 500 pounds. There were a few other blacks and blues caught, but I did not hear of any more large ones, mostly small fish in the 200 to 250-pound class. The good news was the numbers of striped marlin that were found on the Pacific side of the Cape.

Most of them were found just on the edge of that warm water band I mentioned earlier, about two miles or so from shore. The lack of mackerel for bait has hindered the anglers abilities to hook up, but even so, a good day has meant releasing two to four fish, and a great day has been up to six striped marlin releases.

The bite on yellowfin tuna has been an on/off event this past week. One day they are in one area, the next day the same area is as dead as can be. Pods of dolphin holding tuna have been found everywhere this week, and the most consistent area has been a slice of water from directly south of us to just to the south of the San Jaime Banks. This area also encompasses a strong temperature break/current line that keeps moving around.

There have been some nice fish taken from these schools, up to 150 pounds, but most of them have been in the 20-pound class. There are still fish being found in the San Jose area as well, and boats working the humps there have been doing well using sardina as chum and live bait.
Dorado numbers continue to be low and the fish small, with an average size of only 10 pounds. There have been decent concentrations of them on the Cortez side of the Cape close to the beach, and Gray rock up to Palmilla has been providing action on these smaller fish. Some boats have been coming in with limits of these, with an occasional fish to 20 pounds. On the Pacific side the fish have been a bit larger on average, but there have been fewer of them.

For a lot of the fishermen this week, wahoo have been the highlight of the trip. If they managed to get out early they had a really good chance to get one of these speedsters.

There have been more wahoo caught in the past two weeks than I have seen in years, and the fish are decent size. We had one client that went out in the morning and was back at 10:30 a.m. with one 50 pound and one 25 pound wahoo as well as a dorado. Some boats have been getting three or four fish a day, but almost all the action has been early morning.

Most of the action has taken place along the coast in the Sea of Cortez.
Inshore fishing has been a repeat of the past month's action as once again small roosterfish (with an occasional 35 pounder), ladyfish, decent sized sierra, small yellowfin, bonito, skipjack, occasional snapper and grouper along with a patchwork of dorado and striped marlin made up most of the inshore catch. Most of the effort took place on the Pacific side of the Cape and for sheer numbers, sierra dominated the inshore action. George and Mary Landrum

Current Cabo Weather http://tiny.cc/cabo191