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

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
August 3rd, 2025

We continue to get deeper into the tropical storm season now. We are experiencing very hot days in the low 90s that feel much hotter with high humidity and heat index levels. Up until now, we have had a series of storms passing just far enough off to the southwest that they have not made any major impact on Southern Baja. Light crowds of anglers as well, even though this past week the all-around fishing action was much improved.

The main highlight was the yellowfin tuna bite towards Iman. This bite remains consistent on live sardines and strips of squid. The sardine supply seems to remain consistent at this time as the bait guys have not reported many struggles netting them. Most of these tuna are averaging 20-25 pounds. A couple days out of the week, big schools of baby yellowfin and skipjack took over most of the area. These tuna were 2-5 pounds and had big schools of sharks, mostly pilots chasing them.

Some of the local pangeros reported nicer yellowfin tuna at Iman on strips of squid or slow trolling live bulito. The biggest tuna seen this week was 111 pounds, while other boats lost bigger fish after long 2-hour fights. A few locals also reported hooking into nicer tuna at the inner Gordo. They reported more issues with sharks at the Gordo though.

While drifting or slow trolling bait for tuna at Iman and Gordo, we saw a handful of small dorado in the mix. We also had 4 wahoo this week at the fillet table, all of them averaging 18-25 pounds. A couple of these were landed on live sardines, on circle hooks. The other 2 were hooked at 25 trolling XRaps. These wahoo came later in the day.

We also had 2 dogtooth snapper while drifting strips of skipjack at Iman. One of these was close to 50 pounds. Hard to fish the bottom most days as currents were not ideal. Even though we had strong south winds today, averaging 13-15 knots, most boats were able to make it to Iman and still land a handful of nice tuna and dorado.

Good Fishing, Brian

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
July 27th, 2025

We had more activity at the marina this week as the tuna bite got hot, drawing in big crowds of anglers. Many anglers from Southern California took the short flight to get in on the action.

Surprisingly, the bite was consistent throughout most of the week. It was a bit slower this weekend, though we were still able to bring these tuna up to the surface. On most days, our pangas were able to catch their limit within the first hours of the morning. These tuna are averaging 15-20 pounds, with a handful of 30-40 pounders in the mix. On Wednesday, one of the cruisers landed a 110-pound tuna on a dead sardine. This fight took almost 2 hours on 40#test/#40fluoro. We have also seen some small dorado schools (5-12 pounds) and sailfish chase the sardines along with the tuna and skipjack. We are using live sardines that the bait guys are netting along the jetty structures of our marina. Bait guys reported a lower sardine supply this weekend. We will see how this affects the tuna bite in the upcoming days.

After catching enough tuna for dinner, many of the boats decided to troll lures a bit offshore, surrounding the areas of Vinorama, San Luis, all the way to the inner/outer Gordo. Many of these boats hooked into blue and striped marlin. These blue marlin are all on the smaller side, averaging 160- 250 pounds. No reports of big blues or blacks at this time. We have the Bisbee’s East Cape tournament coming up on July 30th; we are confident we will see some big marlin as water conditions are ideal. Most of our top captains will be participating in this tournament.

Not much bottom action to report at this time. We did have a few boats try jigging this week at Vinorama, San Luis, and Iman. Only a few small red snapper were caught this weekend on the jigs. The boats that tried jigging at Vinorama and San Luis reported hooking into tuna and skipjacks. We had 2 dogtooth snapper on Friday while drifting strips of squid at Iman.

Good Fishing, Brian