GORDO BANKS PANGAS
December 22nd, 2024

Slower week in terms of charters as we are approaching the Christmas Holiday. Conditions and weather were ideal as we had light winds, clear blue water, and perfect temperatures with lows in the mid-60s and highs of 80 degrees. As crowds of anglers continue to decrease, many of the local captains are fishing themselves in the hunt for big tuna at the famous Gordo Banks.

The tuna bite at the Gordo has been slow and spotty. We still hear reports of big fish coming up to the bait, though many of them are not taking it. A handful of big tuna were caught this week, most of them biting later in the day on live bulito and skipjacks.  These fish are finicky; safe to assume this is due to the crowded small area a lot of bait, and divers on the high spot. Most of these fish surpass the 100-pound mark, with most of them being over 150. While trolling live skipjacks and bulito for tuna, we have hooked into some striped marlin, big dorado, and wahoo. Most of the dorado seen this week were over 20 pounds, with many of them being over 30 pounds. Most of these wahoo were immediately lost as we are using fluorocarbon; a few nice wahoo were landed on circle hooks and no wire leader! We are seeing marlin every day at the Gordo, though reports claim that the marlin bite is better towards Palmilla/Cerro Colorado/Cabeza de Ballena area.

Many of the boats fishing the Gordo, tend to pick up after a few hours and move towards Iman, La Fortuna, and Cerro (Punta Gorda) to troll their live/dead skipjacks and bulitos. We have seen more action in these areas closer to shore for dorado. The wahoo bite has not been great, though we do see a couple at the fillet station every day. Most of the wahoo on bait have been showing good size; the biggest one landed this week was 56 pounds on a live skipjack. A handful of smaller wahoo were also caught on X-Raps, Nomad DTXs, and lures.

We continue to catch small yellowfin tuna at Iman. These tuna are small, on average 5-10 pounds. We are mostly using small strips of squid as we have not seen a good supply of sardines throughout the week. The bait guys have recently struggled netting the sardines as they are running smaller than usual.

We hope that you have a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones. Merry Christmas!!!

Good Fishing, Brian