GORDO BANKS PANGAS
November 16th, 2025

The week started off great with a hot wahoo bite at Iman. On Monday, many of our boats came in with 4-6 wahoo, while still losing many more. Quality size wahoo averaging 25-35 pounds. On this day, wahoo were hitting almost anything, Rapalas, ballyhoo, jigs, and chiwlis (live and dead). The bigger wahoo came on the live chiwilis. However, Tuesday was much different, we had many boats try for wahoo in the same area and we were able to only account for a handful between 15 boats or so. The rest of the week remained very slow for wahoo a complete switch.

Throughout the week, we still had a few of them at the fillet table every day, though they were a challenge. Most of the boats that focused on wahoo reported losing most of the strikes on live bait (chiwilis). Chiwilis were tough to catch for most part of the week. Captains reported seeing the chiwili deeper and for some reason wouldn’t come up as much, only at specific times of the day. We kept hearing from reports that 8:30 to 9:30 was a better time to target chiwilis. The current made it challenging at Iman to try for chiwili. Most of the chiwili were caught at the Gordo. Some boats trolled their chiwilis at Punta Gorda, closer to shore, and were able to get some wahoo and dorado later in the morning.

The highlight of this week was a hot yellowfin tuna bite at the Gordo. We saw good numbers at both the Outer and Inner Gordo, though we saw nicer size tuna at the Inner towards the end of the week.

On Thursday, we finally started to see some live sardines. The bait guys are netting good size sardines towards Hilton Hotel/Cerro Colorado area. We saw a good supply Thursday through this Sunday. We are hoping sardines are available throughout the rest of the month as we have noticed a big difference getting these tuna to come up to feed on the surface. On Thursday, most of the tuna caught were small footballs. We started to see more quality fish on Friday, tuna in the 30–40-pound range. This weekend, most of the tuna caught were nice size averaging 40 to 80 pounds. In the same area, some boats landed a few dorado as they came up to chase the live sardines. 

Some boats tried specifically for bigger tuna trolling live chiwilis or small skipjacks. We had 3 big tuna this week, all on live chiwilis. The biggest ones this week were 211, 188, and 150 pounds. 

Good Fishing, Brian

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
November 9th, 2025

The annual largest tournaments are now over, though the busy fall season continues. For us, this was one of the most productive weeks of the year, so far. Great action and great weather, plus whales are starting to show in our fishing grounds.

We have had a great run on wahoo for the last 2 weeks. We did not see consistent action like this last year. We are hoping that the hot wahoo bite continues throughout the rest of November and December. Most of our captains are trolling X-Raps, DTXs, and rigged ballyhoo first thing in the morning and then transitioning into slow trolling live chiwilis, if we can catch them. Most days, we are seeing plenty of them. We are hand lining these baits and using tuna veins as our chum line. Throughout the week, many boats were coming in with 2-5 wahoo almost every day, while still losing many other strikes. On average, we are landing 30% of strikes. As you know, getting a good hook set on these wahoo is challenging due to their bony and scissor sharp mouths. One of our boats landed 10 wahoo on Wednesday; the captain reported losing at least another 15, all on live chiwlis. The most productive grounds for wahoo were Iman, La Fortuna and 25. Surprisingly, we did see more dorado this week, most of them in the 15–25-pound range. These dorado were caught on chiwili while looking for wahoo, a couple of them on ballyhoo.

While slow trolling chiwili for wahoo, a handful of 40-50 pound tuna were also caught in the same area, though there was not much tuna action to report at Iman. Earlier in the week, we did see the small football tunas come up, though the live sardine supply was limited. Around mid-week, we did not have any live sardines available; we mostly used squid and dead sardines. Even though Iman’s tuna bite was hit or miss, we did get a few nice tuna while drifting dead sardines and squid. The better tuna bite came from Inner and Outer Gordo. 

The Tuna Jackpot tournament on Thursday and Friday definitely added extra pressure as many boats concentrated in the areas of both Gordos. Many of our captains participated in this tournament. Congratulations to team North Star with Captain Romelio (our local bait guy) for winning first place with a 253-pound yellowfin. Captain Chuy and Jerry had the third heaviest tuna at 190 pounds, though they were knocked out of the big prices as the winning teams were in all jackpots. These big tuna came from both Gordos. Most teams reported landing a handful of tuna, though most of them were under the 120-pound mark. Same situation with targeting wahoo; most teams were able to land them each day of the tournament, though they were in the 30–40-pound range.

Good Fishing, Brian

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
November 2nd, 2025

We are now in the midst of our busy season. Crowds of anglers are arriving to take advantage of great angling opportunities now available as we are seeing action-packed days within 15 miles from our marina. The climate is almost perfect now with sunny days in the low to mid 80s and mornings in the low 70s.

Live sardines were a challenge to start the week. We were forced to fish with squid and bait that we made out on the fishing grounds (skipjack, bulito, and chiwili). Even though we did not have sardines to start the week, we had great action on the other baits mentioned above. On Thursday, we started to see schools of live sardines close to our shorelines and rock structures. This weekend, we had good size live sardines which contributed to a hot tuna weekend bite.

Overall, this week produced great fishing action; wahoo and tuna were the highlights of the week. The wahoo were biting good towards San Luis, Iman, La Fortuna, and 25. Most of the bites came around the Iman area.  These were good quality wahoo in the 25–30-pound range, with many surpassing the 40-pound mark. The biggest wahoo this week was a 67-pounder caught on live chiwili. These wahoo strikes came on X-Raps, Nomad DTXs, ballyhoo, chiwili, and some even on live sardines while fishing for tuna. Some boats managed to land 3-4 wahoo in one day, while still losing a few others close to the boat. Mant captains reported schools of wahoo chasing sardines and swimming with the chum line while drifting bait for tuna.

At Iman, the tuna bite was hit or miss throughout most part of the week. This weekend was much better at Iman as we had live sardines. We were able to bring more tuna up to the surface. Most of the tuna at Iman were on the smaller side, 10-30 pounds, though we did see quite a few over the 40-pound mark. Only a handful of dorado came to the fillet tables, caught within the same area while fishing for tuna. Not a lot of bottom action to report, only a few snapper and grouper in the mix this week.

We had a good tuna bite at the inner and outer Gordo. These tuna hit on live sardines, strips of squid, chunks of tuna, chiwili, and live bulito/small skipjacks. We saw nice tuna in the range of 50-140 pounds.  The biggest tuna brought in this week came in at 185 pounds. We did hear reports from private boats of 220–250-pound fish in the same area. It should be an interesting Tuna Jackpot tournament coming up on Thursday.

Long days at the fillet station and clients having to buy extra coolers, not a bad problem to have!