GORDO BANKS PANGAS
August 24th, 2025

We had a great week full of action and crazy stories at the famous Gordo Banks (Inner and Outer).

Captain Nico landed a 619-pound Black Marlin on Friday on his 26ft super panga. This fish was hooked on a live yellowfin at the Outer Gordo at around 7:30 am. Sadly, after a 3-hour fight, the marlin died. The crew took around an hour to bring it up to the boat.

Captain Chame landed a 621-pound Black Marlin on Saturday on his 26ft super panga as well. This fish was hooked on a live bulito at the Outer Gordo at around 8:00 am. Reports from other captains claim that when Chame hooked his fish, 3 other marlin (2 blues and 1 other black) were hooked at around the same time. Chame and his friends fought this marlin for 5 hours, landing it at around 1:00 pm.

This was a great week for big marlin at our local marina. 4 Black Marlin over 550 were landed, many more were lost. Reports also claim 8-9 blue marlin in the range of 150-300 pounds. All Black Marlin were hooked while trolling big live baits (tuna, skipjack, bulito) at the Outer Gordo. A handful of blue marlin were also hooked on these live baits. The majority of blue marlin hookups came on lures surrounding the areas of both Gordos. We also saw a handful of big striped marlin in the same area (140- 190 pounds).

It is important to reiterate that we always encourage catch and release of all bill fish. Many times, these massive fish die during the fight or very long fights lead to extreme exhaustion, making a clean release challenging. These massive fish on such small boats with no fighting chairs can add a lot of time to these fights, making it more stressful for the fish. Nonetheless, we are happy to say that these 2 fish will feed many families (close to 100).

On Saturday, Captain Papayo landed a 276-pound yellowfin tuna at the Inner Gordo. This was the only big tuna reported all week. A couple of boats reported big boils on their baits, most likely big tuna as well.

If there is no interest in looking for a big marlin or tuna, there is also plenty of action at the inner Gordo on small yellowfin. Most of these tuna are very small, 3-5 pounds; you might see a few closer to 10 pounds. Many skipjack in the mix as well. We have also seen a handful of dorado in the same area on live sardines. Bait guys continue to net plenty of sardines every day.

Action towards Iman was slow throughout most of the week with some boats landing a few tuna and dorado. On Saturday, one of our pangas landed 10 decent size yellowfin on live sardines. They ran out of bait quickly as the action was hot and not many boats were out there to help chum the waters. A few of these tuna were close to the 30-pound mark. 3 wahoo came to the fillet table this week, most of them small, 12-18 pounds. The wahoo came on lures in the areas of 25 and Iman. 1 red snapper was caught on a jig while drifting sardines for tuna at Iman.

Good Fishing, Brian

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