GORDO BANKS PANGAS
April 5th, 2026
Spring Break vacation and good fishing action increased foot traffic at our marina as we received many last-minute bookings. We were not expecting as many charters throughout the week, especially the weekend, as we usually see Spring Break crowds head over to Cabo and focus on beach activities. We are expecting for tourism to quiet down towards the end of next week.
Live bait was a challenge throughout the week. We did see some live sardines on Monday and Tuesday. As the week progressed, the bait guys were discouraged to even look for sardines as the shorelines near us showed big waves and swell, making it almost impossible and extremely dangerous. Most bait guys had to focus on netting live caballito within the harbor. They also sold bags of frozen squid. Even though, sardines were not available, strips of squid worked well for tuna.
Most fleets focused on the fishing grounds of San Luis and Iman for yellowfin. San Luis showed good signs early in the week as most boats were able to land a few nice tuna, most of them in the range of 20-50 pounds. Iman seemed to be the more productive ground; of course, some days better than others. Saturday was the best day as some boats came in with up to 7 tuna, all on squid. The biggest tuna this week came in at 69 pounds.
We saw less dorado this week; though we did see a handful of nice ones (20 to 35 pounds) come in. These dorado were caught on live caballito and strips of squid.
Because of the good tuna bite, not many boats focused on targeting bottom species. The boats that did put in the time, were successful. The best rock structures this week seem to be at San Luis, La Fortuna, and 25. We did see a handful of dogtooth snapper early in the week as well; the biggest one was 42 pounds. Most of these snapper came on strips of skipjack or caballito.
This Sunday, all captains that focused on tuna reported big schools of Jacks at Iman. While drifting strips of squid, all boats landed a handful of these Jacks; one boat reported catching 10 of them, all in the 20 to 25 pounds range. While these fish are not good eating, they put up a great fight, especially on light tackle.
To add to the great week, big wahoo also showed up. We are starting to see some big wahoo offshore, very similar situation to last April/May. The best action came throughout the surrounding areas of the inner and outer Gordos, and the 1150 Bank. 7 wahoo were reported this week, all over 50 pounds. The biggest wahoo was just over 70 pounds. These wahoo were caught on a combination of lures, rigged ballyhoo, and one on a big Nomad DTXs (220s). A 106-pound wahoo was landed in Los Barriles this week. We are expecting to see more big wahoo action throughout April and May.
We were not able to focus inshore this week due to lack of live sardines and big waves. We did see big schools of Jacks and Roosters from a distance throughout the shorelines next to our marina.
Good Fishing, Brian
