

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
October 5th, 2025
We are expecting the side of Hurricane Priscilla this upcoming Tuesday. As of now, we are not expecting a direct hit, though we should be seeing strong winds, big waves, and some rain. Hurricane Priscilla is expected to increase its strength to a Category 2 Hurricane by Tuesday afternoon/evening. Tracking this storm has been challenging as it has been changing direction consistently and we have many trips lined up for Tuesday and Wednesday. We believe that the port will close down sometime Monday evening and possibly reopen Wednesday night. If the forecast remains the same, we should be back to our normal activities on Thursday.
This week, we started to see bigger tuna in the area of San Luis. Most of the tuna caught in that area were 100+ pounds. Not a wide-open bite, though there is a good chance of hooking into one. Some boats reported hooking up to 3 in one day (6-7 charter). Most of the tuna were hooked on strips of squid, a few on dead sardines. We are still seeing a few football tuna in the areas of San Luis and Iman, though the numbers are significantly down compared to the last few months. A few nice dorado were also caught while drifting dead sardines and squid for tuna.
Live sardines have been an issue for the last 4-5 days. The bait guys have to transport dead sardines from the East Cape. We are expecting our live bait supply to be an issue for the next 5-6 weeks, at least. It is usually challenging to find live bait after storms as water becomes murky throughout the shorelines and rock piles. Then we have the tournaments coming up. There is a Marlini tournament starting on the 11th, the first Bisbee’s starting on the 15th, second Bisbee’s starts on the 22nd, and the Tuna Jackpot on November 6th. These big tournaments have negatively affected our live bait supply, especially in the last 2-3 years.
As the highlight of the week, we have seen a good wahoo bite in San Luis and Iman. On Saturday, one of our boats landed 4 of them, good size, averaging 25-30 pounds. On Sunday, this same boat landed another 4, while losing a few more after long runs. Most of the strikes came on rigged ballyhoo, a few others on XRaps and Nomad DTXs. Some boats tried trolling live chiwili for the bigger wahoo, though not many reported success. We only heard of 2 wahoo caught on live chiwili. Most bites came early in the morning.
On Saturday, Captain Chame landed a massive 308 pound yellowfin tuna. This fish was hooked on the outer Gordo on a live skipjack. This same day, they also landed a 180-200 pound blue marlin.
Good Fishing, Brian