GORDO BANKS PANGAS
February 11th, 2024
This week has been busier than usual, with many late notice trips booked due to the unexpected hot fishing we are experiencing this February. Weather conditions remain ideal with mornings in the high 50s and days in the low to mid 70s. We did experience a few cloudy days with some light showers and north winds that picked up around noon throughout most of the week, though the fishing was great and with lots of action.
We noticed more bottom action this week in terms of bigger fish. We did see many groupers and amberjacks in the 30-60 pound class. Most of these fish were caught throughout bottom structures and pinnacles in Iman and La Fortuna. The choice of bait for these larger bottom fish were the live cocineros (green jacks). Most boats are making their own cocineros with sabiki rigs right off the harbor in the mornings while waiting for the bait guys to show with the sardines. We have also seen some smaller groupers, amberjack, and snappers caught in the same area while jigging or fishing the bottom with live sardines.
Our tuna and dorado bite has remained consistent as we saw good numbers throughout most of the week. The average tuna seems to be in the 20-30-pound club, though we did see one pushing 100 lbs. this week. Tuna and dorado are caught with live/dead sardines at Iman and La Fortuna. Most boats are focusing at Iman earlier in the morning as the area seems to be producing more variety with better bottom action in the mornings. We continue to see big schools of dorado, though we did notice smaller size this week. Nonetheless, big bulls continue to show in the mix. While fishing in this area, we are also catching good numbers of white bonitas and sierras, adding good eating variety to the fish box. Throughout the outskirts of Iman, the fleet did land a few marlin and sailfish as well while trolling live sardines and cocineros.
While fishing for tuna, many of the boats have been cut off by wahoo and sierra. The fleet has seen wahoo schools come close to the boat while chasing sardines. Most of these wahoo were on the smaller size, 10-20 pounds. A few boats were lucky to catch a few with circle hooks. Some other boats were lucky to catch one or two by trolling some Rapalas and rigged ballyhoo. The best action for this technique was definitely earlier in the morning before most of the boats arrived to the fishing grounds.
The marlin bite continues to be full of action, though we did see signs of it slowing down towards the end of the week. The best bite seems to concentrate 4-5 miles straight from our marina. Earlier in the week, we were seeing around 50-60 boats fishing in this area almost daily as many of the Cabo boats are starting to focus on our side of town. We saw around 20 boats this weekend as the bite started to scatter towards Cabo again.
Throughout the shoreline, we are starting to see a few more Roosterfish, though nothing big in size. These roosters are still too small to take on the bigger live cocineros. Though the numbers are not great, a few boats were able to catch a few smaller roosters with live sardines.
Good Fishing, Brian
