GORDO BANKS PANGAS
November 26th, 2023
With the passing of Thanksgiving, we are now marking the end of our busy season. It usually settles down for a couple of weeks and then we start to see new crowds arrive for Christmas break.
This week was very productive even though we had a few windy days at the beginning of the week. This made it difficult to reach the Vinorama bank to look for the smaller sized tuna. Our fleet focused mainly on Iman, Fortuna, Cardon, Punta Gorda, and both Inner and Outer Gordos. Some of our boats also continued fishing off Palmilla Point. Even though Palmilla Point has produced some decent wahoo and dorado action, the bigger wahoo are being caught off Iman and Fortuna.
Overall, the wahoo bite has been on and off this week, but they are definitely around. Most of the boats are targeting wahoo and dorado on the daily with different techniques. On average, it seems that you can count with 1-2 wahoo strikes per day if you cover enough ground and put in the time. The most productive plan has been trolling Rapalas and rigged ballyhoo throughout the early morning and switching to slow trolling live bait/ballyhoo later in the day. The biggest wahoo weighed this week came in at 51 pounds.
Although we are mainly looking for the elusive wahoo, this type of fishing is producing good dorado action. For some reason, we are seeing some big bulls come in on the daily. On Thanksgiving Day, our fleet caught 6 bulls over 25 pounds, the biggest one weighing in at 40 pounds. We weighed a couple more at 33 and 38 pounds. We noticed that these dorado are large but thin. Some of these large sized dorado were caught with live sardines. The majority of them were caught while fast/slow trolling ballyhoo. A few sailfish were caught in the mix while slow trolling live/dead bait on the same grounds. We always encourage the safe release of smaller dorado (especially small females) and sailfish/striped marlin to support their growth and our livelihood as fishermen. These species are unique as they are great contributors to the beauty of Sportfishing.
The tuna bite at the Gordo has been on and off for the last week. Due to the consistent dorado bite, not many boats are targeting these nice sized tuna, even though they are definitely still there. This week, our fleet caught 3 nice sized yellowfins, with the biggest one weighing in at 93 pounds. All 3 were caught with strips of squid. On Saturday (yesterday), a few boats looked for these tuna in the afternoon; they were successful as most of them caught one or two 70+pound tuna.
We are now starting to fish off Punta Gorda, most specifically on days where the wind picks up later in the day. Punta Gorda has produced nice dorado action with an occasional wahoo in the mix. We have also seen a few Sierra while fishing this area.
We are also starting to target different reefs and rock structures at Fortuna, Cardon, and the inner Gordo. We are mainly using live/dead sardinas and strips of skipjack; there is also a good chance of hooking something on the jig. Some species caught have been yellow snapper, grouper, bared snapper, and dogtooth snapper. It seems that bottom action is more consistent throughout the early morning.
Good Fishing, Brian
