GORDO BANKS PANGAS
November 24th, 2024

Most of our boats fished towards Cabo this week as wind conditions were not ideal towards Vinorama, San Luis, and Iman. We continue to catch yellowfin tuna limits at Cabeza de Ballena. Most of these fish are football size, averaging 5-6 pounds, with an occasional 20 pounder in the mix. We are using live/dead sardines and strips of squid. Sardines were a bit more difficult this week. This weekend, only a handful of boats were able to buy sardines as the bait guys were not able to net enough. The tuna bite has been early in the mornings on most days. After it dies down, it has mostly been skipjacks and a few small dorado in the mix. After reaching tuna limits, most boats started trolling lures, Rapalas, and ballyhoo in the areas of Cerro Colorado and Palmilla. Not a lot of action while trolling lures, though there were a few dorado and striped marlin landed.

Towards Vinorama and Iman, we are also catching small yellowfin, though the bite is not as hot as Cabeza de Ballena. There is a chance of a bigger tuna in this area. A handful of 70-80 pounders were landed and many reports claim seeing bigger tuna boil up on the sardines.

The wahoo bite has been spotty. We only saw a handful of wahoo at the fillet station this week. Most of these fish were landed towards Vinorama, though it was tough to reach this area due to high winds and swells. On Friday, a few more boats tried fishing the areas of San Luis, Vinorama, and Iman as conditions were ideal with minimal wind and current. We were able to catch skipjacks for bait as we drifted strips for bottom fish. Most boats that fished the bottom on Friday were able to land nice dogtooth snappers and grouper. This weekend, a few boats decided to try for bottom fish, though they reported greener water and no skipjacks in the area.

We are starting to see more activity at Punta Gorda now (Cerro). A few boats have been stopping there on their way back to the marina and they have spotted schools of dorado, though nothing big at this time.

Throughout our shoreline, we are seeing Sierra on Rapalas and small lures. The boats that focused inshore were able to catch double digits in Sierra. We are also seeing small Roosterfish with live sardines, most of them averaging around 5 pounds.

Good Fishing, Brian

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
November 17th, 2024

Fishing remains very similar to last week. We are getting sardines from the bait guys every morning, though they have been getting them to us a bit later, at around 6:40-7:00 am. They are netting the sardines towards Cerro Colorado/Palmilla shoreline. For the boats that do not want to wait for sardines, there are strips of squid available earlier in the morning for sale. Both bait sources have been equally productive for tuna. Some of the bigger tuna this week were hooked on strips of squid. Since most of the yellowfin are running small (5-10 pounds), we are using lighter tackle (30# test). A handful of bigger tuna (60-80 pounds) were caught this week on this lighter tackle, some boats taking over 2 hours to land these fish. While drifting for tuna, we are also catching dorado, though nothing big at this time. We did see a nice dorado, around 30 pounds earlier in the week, one of the bigger ones we have seen in the last few months. We did see more dorado than last week, which is a great sign. We also caught white bonita and sierra (Spanish mackerel) while drifting squid and sardines. We also had some nice snapper and grouper while drifting strips of skipjack. If the current allows it, this is definitely something to try.

We had our annual local wahoo tournament this Sunday and it was a close one. Surprisingly, not many wahoo came to the scales. Out of 25 boats, only 4 wahoo were brought in. The winning wahoo came in at 41.8 pounds. Congratulations to Captain Freddy and Chame for placing second with a 41-pound wahoo on team Burro. Third place belongs to captain Fernando on the 30ft “Tiburon” with a 40 pounder. All of these wahoo were caught fast trolling X-Raps and Nomads. We did not hear of any wahoo caught on bait this tournament. More strikes came from Vinorama and Iman. The wahoo bite was spotty this week, lucky to get one or two strikes throughout the day. Only 2 dorado came in, biggest one weighing 11 pounds. It was a challenging day for the small pangas as it was blowing 15-18 knots.

We are hearing more reports of striped marlin. The reports that came in this week fished areas 14-20 miles from our marina, offshore from Palmilla and Cerro Colorado. While waiting for sardines early in the morning, some boats have also landed a few smaller wahoo at Palmilla Point on Rapalas.

Good Fishing, Brian

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
November 10th, 2024

The Tuna Jackpot tournament on the 7^th and 8^th was a very exciting one.  There were many tuna in the 140–220-pound range. According to captain reports, all the big fish were caught while looking for porpoise schools, anywhere from 25-55 miles offshore from Cabo. These reports indicate that the bigger fish were either hooked on live skipjacks or strips of squid. We also saw a good number of wahoo at the scales, biggest one weighing 70 lbs. Two of our captains participated in this tournament and focused strictly on wahoo. They landed 9 wahoo in the 2 days, unfortunately, none of them were over the 40-pound mark. These fish were caught at San Luis, Vinorama, and Iman on live skipjacks, rigged ballyhoo, and X-Raps/Nomads DTXs.

The main highlight this week was this wahoo bite in the first few hours of the day. Our charters landed a good number of wahoo this weekend. Most of these fish were landed in the first couple hours of the day. The main spots were Vinorama, Iman, and 25. These fish are nice size, averaging 25-30 pounds. We saw more dorado this week while trolling ballyhoo. Most of these dorado are on the smaller side, though we did see a handful of 15 pounders in the mix. An occasional striped marlin or sailfish will also pop up in the spread.

We continue to catch small yellowfin tuna at Vinorama and Iman. Some days, the prefer small strips of squid, other days live/dead sardines. You will get a good workout on most days as skipjacks are a nuisance. If the current allows it, there is still a good chance of picking a nice dogtooth snapper from the bottom. The current has been tough on most days.

Good Fishing, Brian