Cass Tours Fish Reports ending November 15, 2009

[Cass Tours]

La Paz Tailhunter International
Seasons have definitely changed down here after a season of sweltering heat and humidity. We're probably having some of the most pleasant weather of the year right now. Not hot. Not cold. Just right. Northern breezes, strong at times, are keeping us doing most of our fishing out of Muertos Bay now, but occasionally, when we send a boat out of La Paz with out fleet, they are getting limits or near limits of dorado to 25 pounds.

As mentioned, the better conditions and fishing have been with our Las Arenas/Muertos Bay fleet. Even when the winds blow, the fishing is so relatively close to shore that it makes for a great day. Except for having to run the island to get bait, we then come back and fish literally no more than 5 minutes out of the Bay and maybe only 100-200 yards off the beach.

Fresh dead sardines have worked great on the tuna school that seems to have planted itself between the big houses on the hill at Punta Perrico and the old Las Arenas Hotel. Some days we get 1 or 2 fish per boat. Other days, the boats will get 2-6 fish per panga. Still great fishing for November and the 25-35 pound grade fish are incredible fighters, especially on light tackle.

As well, huge bonito up to 12 pounds give the tuna a run for the money in terms of fighting power but then schools of dorado and free swimming marlin and sailfish also come through the same areas where the pangas are fishing for the tuna. Just about every day, I see some panga suddenly hooked up and chasing down a leaping billfish blowing up in the middle of the fleet and pangas trying to get out've the way amid lot of laughter and screaming anglers. Surprisingly, this late in the season, we're getting quite a few billfishing. I've never seen so many marlin and sails this late in the year.

For the dorado, we've still got 'em swimming around in relatively nice numbers, but the best way to get them going to catch bonito then slow troll strips of them behind the panga. After a hookup, toss live bait to see if the school follows the hooked fish in. Often, 2, 3 or more fish come to the boat.

In addition, every few days, someone hooks a wahoo around Cerralvo. In fact, if you're the right person at the right time in the right spot, the wahoo can go off. Same with roosterfish and sierra as well. Just a nice time to be here for the moment.



Vista Sea Sport Dive Report - East Cape
Fantastic diving this week including most definitely one of the best days of the year! The dive site was teeming with Big Eyed Jacks, they completely enveloped us for both dives, a million pairs of eyes staring out from a swirling silvery impenetrable wall of fish. When we eventually did break free, a school of maybe 80 - 100 Golden Cownose Rays flew past, we managed to stealthily sneak up on them and join their formation; for maybe ten minutes we followed as they soared and swooped in front of us, unreal!! Two Juvenile Rockmover Wrasse were found, one near the beginning of the dive and then another towards the end, I've only ever seen two before in all my years of diving! A Clarion Angelfish was intrigued to see us, maybe more so by us than we were by it. I was excitedly chattering through my regs to my dive buddy, another rare find which blew me away! We were joined again this week by PADI MSDT Ken Dunlop, check out the video of his day at www.uwexplorers.net.



Mazatlan - Aries Fleet
Another great week of Mazatlan sportfishing and fun-filled fiestas at the Marina El Cid. The fishing has picked up considerably, especially for sailfish, and even with a few hands-full of yellowfin tuna. "Aries VIII" released the only blue marlin for the week with the MDM group charter and the "Aries I" was high billfish boat with 5 sailfish for one day, (November 6th), also with the MDM charter group. The overall fish counts for a combined total of 63 boat days fished reflected 1 blue marlin, 6 stripers, 48 sailfish, 36 yellowfin tuna and 118 dorado. According to Geronimo Cevallos, the Marina/Fleet Manager, the boats had many opportunities at the billfish but the fish were not overly eager to snap at the rigged baits, the lures or even live bait. Even with the stubborn bite, the boats managed to eke out a near 1 billfish per boat average, which is the best so far this season.


Mazatlan Climate: Mostly sunny and warm days with temps from 64 nights to 88 daytime highs. Mostly sunny and warm days, temps from 64 nights to 88 daytime highs.


Sea Conditions: Near Excellent! From the shoreline out to 10 or so miles, temp at 84 degrees and falling to 82.5 degrees from there on out. Very light surface breezes and very little swell condition.


Best Fishing Area: Seems like the better bite was out to the south to southwest of the Marina, 20 miles or so, but good fishing was had over a wide-spread area all the way out to 30 miles.


Best Bait/Lure: Rigged trolling baits were best for the billfish & the dorado. The yellowfin were biting the tuna feathers best.

Cancun - Puerto Morelos
Hurricane Ida kept the port closed at Puerto Morelos for most of the week, making sportfishing almost non-existent for the anglers throughout this area. While there was no damage reported for the Puerto Morelos area, the El Cid Resort and the Marina El Cid, the winds and rain were just not conducive to any serious sportfishing efforts. I talked with the General Manager, Armando Gutierrez, and he said, The potential for problems was there, but when the storm blew by and all was said and done, everything was just fine and we were back up and fishing again". The overall fish counts for the five boats over 2 days reflected 7 Atlantic barracuda, 2 red snapper, 5 bonito, 1 yellowfin tuna and 2 king mackerel for the efforts.


PM Climate: Partly cloudy days with temps from 62 nights to 85 daytime highs.


Sea Conditions: Sea temps holding steady at 83.5 degrees, light easterly surface winds, 8-12 knots and almost no swell at all.


Best Bait/Lure: Best bait continues tto be the rigged and unrigged ballyhoo that frequent this are.

San Jose del Cabo - Gordo Banks
Times are grand in Los Cabos, as ideal weather conditions, combined with world class sport fishing opportunities have attracted scores of anglers. Sunny skies, high temperatures in the 80s, ocean water temperatures averaging 80 to 83 degrees, with minimal swells, light wind conditions and a wide variety of game fish being encountered throughout the area all added up to labeling these local fishing grounds as a true fisherman's paradise.

Fleets are now busy, as the news has leaked out that there is now a once in a long time bite for quality sized one hundred pound plus yellowfin tuna now going on in the vicinity of the Inner Gordo Banks. This spot is in close proximity to the Puerto Los Cabos Marina, as well as being within easy range of Cabo San Lucas charters, so there has been heavy boat pressure from all directions. Schools of sardinas close to shore have become scattered, heavy pressure and recent moon phase seems to have been a factor. Most days the commercial pangeros have been netting sufficient bait to go around, though they are having to back track towards Palmilla and Chelino and then back to meet the sport charters back off La Playita.

Either way, it was worth the waiting for the live sardinas, they have been the preferred choice for the yellowfin. Proven technique was to drift fish over the high spot while using a combination of live and dead sardinas, while also soaking chunk bait with strips from freshly caught skipjack. The tuna could be seen all around on the surface, just appearing to be lazily feeding on chum and patrolling the area. Often these fish become increasingly line wary, this has been case at times, but then on other days anglers reported hooking into these tuna with 100 pound leaders. Fluorocarbon leader of 80 pound test has been most popular at this particular time for the average sized fish being encountered, which has been 80 to 100 pounds on the Gordo Banks, with fish close to 150 pounds weighed in daily and then there are the big hook up stories of heartbreak lost monsters that are being told back at the docks. So anglers looking to have a better chance at landing those record sized cows that are now in lurking in local waters should also have 130 pound fluorocarbon in your arsenal.

In recent days there were more tuna moving in throughout the region, Santa Maria, Chileno, Red Hill, Gordo Banks, Punta Gorda, Cardon, La Fortuna, Iman to Vinorama were all attracting large concentrations of yellowfin that were ranging from smaller football model to over 100 pounds as well, once again these fish were striking best while drift fishing with bait.

Averaged catches ranged from one to four of the larger sized tuna per charter, to as many as 15 or 20 smaller of the medium sized grade of fish, great action, with options of choosing to target the monsters or the normal sized tuna. The spot producing the highest percentage of larger tuna has definitely been the Gordo Banks. We are hoping that the commercial tuna seiners will not destroy what has now become a nearly unprecedented bite for the past two weeks, perhaps a one and ten year event, with chances of reaching lifetime proportions.

Yesterday there were reports of helicopters based from the commercial tuna fleet that were circling overhead on the Gordo Banks, tracking the activity, this is never a favorable sign when you see them in the area. It makes us recall the time some ten years back when the commercial fleet single handedly caused the sport fishing charter action on larger tuna go from wide open to nothing overnight, we will hope for the best and be anxious to watch the action continue.

Wahoo activity was up and down in recent days, for experienced anglers using their proven array of trolling lures there were as many as five wahoo per charter landed. Though on the average if you had one wahoo mixed in your overall catch you were doing well .Many more wahoo were landed by anglers not even targeting them, while using straight monofilament while targeting yellowfin tuna. A few wahoo were also taken on casting jigs. Of the 'hoo accounted for, they ranged from 15 to 60 pounds.

Dorado were found just about anywhere the inshore tuna were, roaming in smaller schools, of fish ranging mostly in the 5 to 15 pound class. We did hear of a handful of bulls that were much bigger, most of these found on the Pacific.

One La Playita panga, from the commercial fleet, with skipper Catarino, had an extended 5 hour battle with a 450 pound class black marlin that hit on a larger trolled bait near the Gordo Banks and took the entire crew to subdue. There was a huge increase of striped marlin showing up on these same Banks for the past couple of days, anglers were hooking into on small sized sardinas and the billfish could be seen in numbers breaking the surface.

Running out of room here, just want everyone to know that if you have ever wanted to hook into a 100 pound plus yellowfin tuna that is within a mere ten miles of your launching area, now is the time to take that opportunity. Who knows how long this bite will last.

The combined fleet of pangas launching out of La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 220 charters for this past week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 1 black marlin, 23 sailfish, 21 striped marlin, 38 wahoo, 410 dorado, 856 yellowfin tuna, 26 pargo, 6 dogtooth snapper,32 rainbow runner, 18 cabrilla and 35 sierra.




Guatamala -The Great Sailfish Company
The fishing this past week has ranged from outstanding to tough - as has the weather ! The storm that is now approaching the Gulf Coast has been busy pushing fronts across all of Central America - and Guatemala was quick to catch a cold ! Early in this past week we have been seeing days where 20-30 billfish raised was the norm - but as soon as the front and the weather came in, the seas built and unfortunately the fishing slowed. The Netland group saw decent fishing their first day, with a half dozen sailfish and a good sized Blue Marlin that took over two hours to bring to the boat for release.

Following days however brought ever increasing seas, and most boats stayed closer to shore - either splitting the day with some inshore fishing, or searching for Dorado and sailfish at about 25 miles.

The weather has now passed, and with the calmer seas the bait is now concentration again - so we are hopeful to see consistent fishing more on a par to the early part of last week than the latter days.



Cabo San Lucas - Gaviota Fleet The bite is on for the Cabo San Lucas sportfishers with the boats focused on dorado and yellowfin tuna this past week. While the billfish counts were down for this time of year, we believe the boats focused mainly on the easy to catch dorado and yellowfin this week. High billfish count for the week came from the "Gaviota XI", with Captain Julian Ruiz, producing 7 stripers & 1 sailfish released for 7 days fished, along with 46 dorado, and 1 wahoo and this was followed by the "Fish Cabo I", reflecting 6 stripers, 1 sailfish and 22 dorado for 5 days fished. For the anglers that wished to focus on billfish, the opportunities were readily available. Overall combined fish counts for 61 days fished reflected 26 stripers, (22 released) 4 sailfish, (3 released) 1 roosterfish, 13 wahoo, 1012 yellowfin tuna and 416 dorado.


Cabo Climate: An excellent week's weather that was mostly sunny and warm with temps from 63 nights to 85 daytime highs.


Sea Conditions: Overall, very good sea conditions on both sides of the peninsula. Temps from the Pacific side, down to Cabo Falso and out 30-plus miles or so was stable at 79 degrees. From Cabo to Gorda Banks and out 8 miles, temps were 79-80. From the 95 and northerly, from 81 and rising to 83-84 degrees.


Best Fishing Area: Cabo Falso drop-off for the billfish, Golden Gate & Jaime Banks for the wahoo & tuna and the dorado were everywhere on the Pacific side.


Best Lure/Bait: Live bait was best for the billfish. Dorado hot on the lures, live bait, strip baits and surface cast lures. Tuna on the live bait and the feathers.


Live Bait Supply: The bait supply was getting back to normal as the week progressed, following the Tournament.


Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo
Captain Temo Verboonen reported excellent fishing during the past week, both inshore and offshore and that more and more anglers are coming into the area. H e reported in for just 3 super pangas, including his own, "Secuestro de Amor", reflecting a combined total of 7 sailfish, 9 yellowfin tuna, 13 dorado for the offshore waters, (starting offshore at 4 miles) and 120 Sierra, 36 jack cravelle, 11 roosterfish and 13 bonito for the inshore fishing.He said the sailfish are schooled up and tend to bite in groups with 3-4 strikes at the same time. Overall, his report was very upbeat and had excitement in the report.


IZ Climate: Sunny Days and temps from 70 nights to 93 daytime highs.


Sea Conditions: Good temps from 84 inshore and rising to 86 offshore, with excellent clarity, both in and off shore, and very slight surface breezes and little swell condition, allowing for calm seas.


Best fishing area: Sailfish were offshore from 4 to 15 miles, along with the yellowfin tuna and dorado.


Best Bait/Lures: Sailfish on the rigged trolling baits, tuna on the feathers. Roosterfish and jack cravelle on live bait and red & white pencil poppers. Sierra on small shiny lures and feathers and rigged strip baits.


Bait Supply: Remains abundant for all of the boats.