GORDO BANKS PANGAS
August 17^th, 2025

We continue to see light crowds of anglers in the area. We are expecting things to stay the same until the first week or two of October, when temperatures start cooling off and storms are no longer (usually) a concern. As of now, we are enjoying a quiet period of no tropical storms threatening; according to the forecast we should be in the clear for the remainder of the month. The next four-five weeks are historically the time frame with the highest percentage of being impacted by hurricanes; we are hoping for the best. Throughout this week, we had quite a bit of cloud cover with cooler breeze (mostly south winds) in the afternoons.

The tuna bite continues to be consistent as we are catching limits daily (5 per license). Most of these tuna are small, averaging  5-10 pounds. This was a better week in terms of size as in the last 2 weeks, many of these fish were under 5 pounds. Iman produced more quality tuna, anywhere from 5 to 25 pounds, though the bite was not as active as Inner Gordo. When the tuna came up at Gordo, some boats were able to land double digits in 15-30 minutes. This weekend, one of our pangas reported landing 15 tuna (3 licenses), releasing around 20 of them, and 2 dorado, all before 8:00 am. We have seen more dorado at the Gordo this week, even some 20-30 pounders later in the week. The biggest dorado we saw this week was pushing 40 pounds. The tuna and dorado were most active on   live and dead sardines. Some boats tried drifting strips of squid and were able to land 20-30 pound tuna.

Sharks were not an issue this week. Because of this, more boats started slow trolling bigger baits (skipjack, small tuna, and bulito) in the areas of San Luis, Iman, and Inner/Outer Gordos. On Friday, one of our pangas caught 2 bulito at the Inner Gordo on dead sardines while fishing for tuna. Since they already had their limit, they decided to slow troll them for a chance at a bigger tuna or dorado. Within 5 minutes of trolling, they hooked into a 121-pound yellowfin. This tuna put up a good fight, close to 2 hours, as the angler decided to land it solo and they were battling some swell and winds. This same day, another panga hooked into a big Black Marlin, estimated at around the 500-pound mark. They hooked this fish at the Outer Gordo on a live skipjack at around 11:00 am. They had this fish on for 5 hours and ended up losing it as winds made it a difficult fight. On Wednesday, one of the pangas caught a 400-pound Black Marlin on a live skipjack. This fish was hooked in the areas of Outer Iman. As we continue to hear more reports from big marlin, we are confident it will be an interesting year at the Bisbee’s tournaments in October.

Good Fishing, Brian

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
August 10th, 2025

We finally had some much-needed rain in the area on Friday and Saturday morning due to the Tropical Storm IVO. We only experienced one side of the storm, giving us a good amount of rain and winds averaging 12-18 mph. The port closed down Thursday night and reopened on Friday night. The storm did not affect the bait supply nor the tuna bite.

Another week of great yellowfin action! Our fleet focused at Iman and Inner Gordo this week. Most of these yellowfin are extremely small, big schools of 2–3-pound yellowfin have taken over the area, perfect baits for larger tuna or marlin, but also good eating. Iman produced nicer quality fish this week, many of them in the 20–50-pound range. We also had a handful of fish closer to 100 pounds. This tuna bite came while drifting live/dead sardines and strips of squid. We also saw more dorado activity as schools of small ones were chasing the sardines, especially after the rain. Most of these dorado were on the smaller side; we encouraged catch and release on most of these as they were under 6 pounds (most of them were females). We did have a handful of nicer ones in the same mix. On Saturday, one boat reported 4 big bulls (30-40 pounds) come up to the boat and chase sardines though they wouldn’t bite. Another boat landed a 35 pounder on a strip of squid.

Sharks continue to be an issue, mostly silkys and pilot sharks. Unfortunately, they prefer the medium size tuna (20-40 lbs.). They wait until you hook a nicer tuna and chase them as they are on the line longer. Many of our captains have reported not experiencing that many sharks, nor baby tuna in one area in their lifetime. This shark and small tuna situation has been consistent for over the last 2 weeks. The inner Gordo was mostly baby tuna and sharks this week. Pretty much all you can get if the sharks allow it. A lot of skipjack (tuna/white and black) in the mix as well.

Not much bottom action to report at this time. This Sunday, one of our boats focused on drifting strips of skipjack and tuna over different reefs at Iman and San Luis. Current conditions were not ideal, though they did end up hooking 3 big dogtooth snapper, losing all of them. One came off right at the gaff.

Good Fishing, Brian

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
August 3rd, 2025

We continue to get deeper into the tropical storm season now. We are experiencing very hot days in the low 90s that feel much hotter with high humidity and heat index levels. Up until now, we have had a series of storms passing just far enough off to the southwest that they have not made any major impact on Southern Baja. Light crowds of anglers as well, even though this past week the all-around fishing action was much improved.

The main highlight was the yellowfin tuna bite towards Iman. This bite remains consistent on live sardines and strips of squid. The sardine supply seems to remain consistent at this time as the bait guys have not reported many struggles netting them. Most of these tuna are averaging 20-25 pounds. A couple days out of the week, big schools of baby yellowfin and skipjack took over most of the area. These tuna were 2-5 pounds and had big schools of sharks, mostly pilots chasing them.

Some of the local pangeros reported nicer yellowfin tuna at Iman on strips of squid or slow trolling live bulito. The biggest tuna seen this week was 111 pounds, while other boats lost bigger fish after long 2-hour fights. A few locals also reported hooking into nicer tuna at the inner Gordo. They reported more issues with sharks at the Gordo though.

While drifting or slow trolling bait for tuna at Iman and Gordo, we saw a handful of small dorado in the mix. We also had 4 wahoo this week at the fillet table, all of them averaging 18-25 pounds. A couple of these were landed on live sardines, on circle hooks. The other 2 were hooked at 25 trolling XRaps. These wahoo came later in the day.

We also had 2 dogtooth snapper while drifting strips of skipjack at Iman. One of these was close to 50 pounds. Hard to fish the bottom most days as currents were not ideal. Even though we had strong south winds today, averaging 13-15 knots, most boats were able to make it to Iman and still land a handful of nice tuna and dorado.

Good Fishing, Brian