Z Fish Report (2/24/11)

H.C. Lee of Arlington Texas with Leonardo on
 the panga Fish On with a very nice bull dorado
Photo by Don Grantages 

While on the municipal pier this morning, talking to the captains for more information for this report, I spent some time with Santiago, the owner of the super panga Gitana, and his client Len Grupp of Minnesota. Their experiences reflected the overall scenario for the fishing this last couple of weeks. They had been getting 1 or 2 sailfish and maybe a striped marlin a day. Most boats are averaging about 1 billfish a day, with the striped marlin being caught about equally with the sailfish.

What really got my attention though is Len is staying out at Barra Potosi and was telling me of the huge numbers of sardines in the surf there. This is an annual thing, and when the sardines come in like that, the jack crevalle follow. And the jacks are big enough, the Mexican hand line fishermen are having a tough time carrying their 4 or 5 fish back home.

The reason I was really interested about the Barra is because this is an excellent way to spend a day, and one of the few areas on this coast the surf is not too high for a spin or fly rod fisherman for shore fishing. You can kick back under the palapa of one of the restaurants there, have a cold one, a few traditional Mexican appetizers, and wait for the jacks to breeze in again. When the jacks start crashing the bait, you go out and catch a couple of the hard fighting fish, and then back to the cold one. Any fly in a 3 or 4 inch sardine pattern will work, and the spin fishermen are having better luck with shiny 1 to 2 oz spoons and Mega Bait jigs of the same length as the flies.

Otherwise, Santiago told me he made a long run down south to La Barrita and only got a few jacks and a couple of small roosters. Other inshore fishermen are picking up a lot of very nice sized sierras.

Lee's dorado in action

With the cold current pushing down from the north, the clean water is about 6 miles off the beach, but the good blue water is way out at the 50 mile mark. Some of the boats are getting into the 10 to 15 pound yellowfin tuna between 16 and 20 miles on a 240º heading, but Ruben Lara found the bigger tuna, on the same heading, at 54 miles and has been hitting them every day. Ruben used to be the captain of the Vamonos III and is now a commercial fisherman. After a long hard day, he has been getting back to port averaging about 700 pounds of 40 to 80 pound tuna a day. Not bad for a single guy hand lining on an open panga. He told me there are schools out there with some really big tuna. But, he would rather catch 15 tuna at 40 pounds in the same time it would take him to get one 200 pound tuna to the boat.

For an idea how a few of the other captains are doing for a single day of offshore fishing: Mecate, on the cruiser Agua Azul, got 2 sails and 1 nice dorado. Martin, on the Gaviota, got 3 sailfish, and Cheva, on the panga Dos Hermanos II, got 3 striped marlin and 1 sailfish.

Leonardo, on the panga Fish On, fishing with Don Grantges of Texas, had a large Black Marlin on for a while and then it got off. Twenty minutes later they hooked a huge bull dorado over 5 feet long and approaching 60 pounds. It did not get off. It is dinner for several nights to come.

Ed Kunze
To order a copy of my fishing book:

http://www.mexperience.com/store/vuitem.php?itemid=13&sc=KUNZE-13

the twitch

Judging by the weather this week, I think Spring has sprung. The tackle shops are crowded with shoppers, "Flats Blue" rods are flying off the shelf and everyone we talk to is getting the itch to go fishing. Here are a couple of items you want to know about to fill the gaps between your next trips.

Need a pick-me-up Monday morning? Mr. Producer uploads a full length episode from last season every Monday for that little adrenaline boost. From wade fishing the flats of Stuart for trout and snook to striper fishing out of New York City, another Addictive Fishing adventure is available at the click of a mouse. Subscribe to our YouTube page and be notified as soon as new episodes become available. If we get enough subscribers we'll be able to post the brand new 2011 season episodes straight to the internet this season! Be sure to sign up and tell your friends to do the same.

Next weekend, the Mogan Man will be in Tampa with FINS for the Tampa Tribune Outdoor Expo. The expo will run March 4-6 at the State Fairgrounds Expo Hall. Capt. Blair will have plenty of FINS line for sale so be sure to pick up enough to respool for the season. He'll also be showing off his new "Flats Blue" rods and maybe a few other goodies. Don’t forget to drop off your donation for Project Snook. Every dollar counts and goes directly to funding Mote Marine’s snook research. Hope to see you there!

It's been a while since we've had a Mogan Maiden as our Mogan of the Week. Sharon Magwood recently got a new kayak and she couldn’t wait to put it in the water. She picked up the kayak at the shop and took it straight to the water for a quick trip before sunset. Using a CAL shadtail, Sharon christened her new boat with a healthy Tampa Bay snook. Way to break it in, Sharon!

Feeling the urge,
BillBird 

another local blogger steps up to the plate

Nick from Brookfield Angler is another local blogger from the greater Chicago-land area that is just starting to establish a name for himself. I just recently came across this site from a local fishing forum and spent some time giving his site a read. Even though the site is in its early stages, I found the content and writing thoughtfull and to the point. 

brookfieldangler.com

Being a new blog, they have just a few followers at this point. I've already followed and would be greatful if people in the blogger world would stop on by and show him some support. Click this link to be taken to Brookfield Angler.

So I Caught Fish Now What Do I Do With It?

You can catch some great eating fish in Cabo when marlin fishing isn't up to par. Catches such as dorado, wahoo and yellow fin tuna are some of the best eating in the world, but along with these others such as yellowtail, sierra and snapper are also delicious and not at all "fishy". Some angler opt to have their fish frozen and take it home, which is included with our all-inclusive charters. Fish are filleted, packed in Ziploc bags ready to be picked up from our office the day you leave. You can also opt for vacuum packing or smoking handled by outside vendors for an additional cost. One thing we highly recommend though, is having some of your catch prepared at Captain Tony's right on the marina next to our office. You can have yoru fresh catch delivered to the restaurant by our staff. Just let them know at the dock what time you want to eat and how many people and they will take care of the rest. Captain Tony's does a phenomenal job with your fish and also offers great salads, pizzas, seafood chile rellenos plus lots more. The pizzas are baked in a special mezquite oven.  They charge a small fee to cook your fish and the result can be seen here; they will do several different preparations so you can decide on your favorite.

Another One of Those Weird & Ugly Fish!

On Saturday "La Brisa" was out withs some anglers who had traveled a REALLY long way to be here; Campbell & John Fergurson are from Melbourne, Australia, which is a very long flight.  They were fishing out at Punta Gorda and had already caught a striped marlin that weighed around 150 lbs (thanks guys for making us look good, when fishing has been ahem.....slow) when the crew saw something odd floating on the surface and went over to investigate, it was a ratfish, also known as a quimera and it was dead. They gently lifted it into the boat to bring back to shore and to the scientists. You may recall that we saw the first one of these two years ago and nobody had a clue as to what it was. It was identified by local scientists who went on to do research with the specimen we gave them. We followed up with a second fish several months later and now they have this one. It appears that this is a new species of ratfish, not known before and they are expected to publish a paper on it soon. We applaud the crew of La Brisa, as they have been working with the scientists on several projects and all of our crews are showing a keen interest in conservation and want to learn more. They did well to recognize this as something unusual and to get it to us intact to the freezer.

Readers Choice Award Goes to Pisces!

We were thrilled to receive this beautiful award given this past Saturday at a fabulous event in Palmilla.

Representing our comapany were Ady Moya (left) and Ale (Alejandra) Almada (right). Visitors to Cabo were asked to vote for different companies ranging from restaurtants to activites. Pisces got most votes for best fishing and yachting. The voice of the public speaks......

Is This An Incredible Shark or What?

The following took place at Ucluelet on the west side of Vancouver Island, Canada:

While the ocean vessel 'Dawn Raider' was commercial fishing for dogfish, this Great White was hooked in the mouth but only resisted slightly for 15 minutes before it came up alongside the boat to have a look; long enough for one of the crew members to slip a rope around it's tail !!!
'And that's when the s**t hit the fan!!'
The Shark took off towing the 42 foot fishing boat backwards through the water at about 7 Knots. Just like in JAWS, the boat was taking on water over the stern and the crew watched in horror as the shark would actually jump completely out of the water at times. This went on for an hour before the shark finally drowned.

She weighed in at 1035 LBS. It is suspected she followed a weak El Nino Current into local waters in search of food.  This took place on November 29th, 2006 and we want to thank David Flores for sending us the photos.

Although mid 60 degree  water is considered ideal for these sharks, the larger ones can tolerate water in the low 50s- according to the person that posted this story.

Actually Great White sharks are found in Baja with Isla Guadalupe being one of the best spots to observe these magnificent creatures.