GORDO BANKS PANGAS
February 25th, 2024
Busier week than usual for this time of year as our fleet saw a few days with up to 10 charters. We had many families arriving in Los Cabos for President’s week. The weather was ideal as we were experiencing warmer temperatures with mornings in the low to mid 60s and sunny days in the mid-80s. The conditions were ideal for families wanting to experience great fishing and sunny warm days. Surprising to say, the fishing was as good, if not better than last week.
The main target species this week was yellowfin tuna. We continue to see nice schools of tuna at Iman and La Fortuna, the best action coming from Iman. The bait guys continue to net nice sized sardines in the mornings. The tuna bite has been consistent throughout most of the day. We have seen some days with better action earlier in the mornings and other days with more action in the afternoon/evening; hard to predict how the bite will be each day, though they are definitely around as we have seen great numbers throughout most of the week. The average tuna is around 20-30 pounds, though we were surprised to see bigger fish show by the end of this week. The fleet caught many tuna in the 50–90-pound range; definitely a tough fight on light tackle. Many of these bigger fish broke off after long fights due to light tackle. The biggest tuna brought in this week was close to 110 pounds; a 3-hour fight on 40# test.
Within the same Iman/La Fortuna area, we landed some big dorado. Even though we did see lower numbers of dorado this week, we saw better quality fish as most of the dorado were averaging 15-25 pounds. The biggest dorado caught this week was a 49 pounder while drifting live sardines for tuna.
Bottom fishing was a bit slower this week, but we did see some nice sized grouper, amberjack, and yellow snapper. Most of these bottom fish are being caught on live green jacks also known as “cocineros” or live sardines. We are also landing a few on jigs, though live bait seems to be more productive. While jigging, we are catching a significant amount of white bonita; a few boats that focused on jigging were able to catch upwards of 10 in a few hours. Though these bonita were not the targeted species, they are great to eat.
We also had great marlin action while fishing for tuna this week. Most of the marlin bites came on live sardines and cocineros. The fishing grounds of Iman and La Fortuna have been consistently productive, and we continue to be surprised every day as we see no signs of it stopping.
The most surprising bite this week was a wahoo bite at Punta Gorda on Thursday. It seems that this bite only lasted the morning of as many boats tried that same afternoon and Friday and came in empty handed. One of the boats that fished the area on Thursday morning was able to land 12 wahoo. Most of these fish were averaging 15-20 pounds, with a couple 30 pounders in the mix. Live sardines and Rapalas were the go-to. We are excited to see what the last week of February can produce.
Good Fishing, Brian
