GORDO BANKS PANGAS
September 21^st, 2025

As we head into the end of September, we are starting to see small crowds of anglers arrive into San Jose. Many of these anglers will stay in the area for 2-3 months, hoping for the fishing to remain hot. We consider this last week of September the start to our busy season.

We had a good productive week, focusing mostly on yellowfin tuna and dorado. We focused on the grounds of San Luis and Iman. San Luis produced more action throughout the week; however, sharks were a nuisance. Many captains reported losing over 10 tuna/skipjacks to these sharks on most days. Within the mix of sharks, a few captains reported seeing some massive tiger sharks. Most of these tuna are on the smaller side, averaging around 4-6 pounds. We saw a few tuna in the 30-50 pound range within the same area. Some boats also reported losing a few bigger ones after long fights as we are mostly using 30 and 40 pound test. Most of the bigger tuna came on strips of squid or dead sardines. While drifting or slow trolling live sardines, we have consistently seen a good mix of dorado as well. Most of these dorado continue to be on the smaller side, averaging 6-10 pounds.

To fight the heat, many boats focused on trolling Rapalas and ballyhoo as they looked for wahoo in the areas of La Fortuna and 25. Throughout the week, we saw 11 wahoo at our fillet station. Most of these wahoo averaged 20-25 pounds, though we did have a couple closer to 40 pounds. While fast trolling rigged ballyhoo, a few boats also reported hooking into striped marlin and sailfish.

Not much bottom action to report this week as current conditions were not ideal. Some boats tried jigging on the high spots of Iman and San Luis only to hook into skipjack and a few tuna.

We continue to catch small yellowfin and dorado at the Inner Gordo on sardines. If you are looking for bigger fish, then Gordo is the place to be at (Inner and Outer). As we look for big tuna or marlin, we are slow trolling live skipjack, bulito, and chiwilis, for a chance at that one good hook up. We are seeing plenty of bait in these areas. On Monday, a 250-pound tuna was caught at the Inner Gordo on a live bulito. This fish was hooked within 5 minutes of trolling the bulito on the high spot. On Wednesday, a private boat caught a 425-pound black marlin on a live skipjack at the Outer Gordo; this fish died after a 30-minute fight. On Friday, one of the local pangeros caught a 250-pound black marlin on a live chiwili.

Good Fishing, Brian

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
September 14th, 2025

Most of our boats focused in the areas of San Luis, Iman, 25, and La Fortuna. Our main focus was yellowfin tuna and dorado, though the numbers were hit or miss throughout the week. Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday were good tuna days. Most of the tuna were caught at Iman and San Luis on live sardines and strips of squid. The nicer 20–40-pound tuna came on squid, though we did not see many in this size range. It was mostly the smaller tuna (5-10 pounds) on live sardines. We also had a handful of dorado in the same area. Most of these dorado were small, averaging 6-8 pounds, a few 10-12 pounders in the mix. This weekend, most boats reported having issues with sharks at San Luis and Iman.

The highlight this week was a decent wahoo bite throughout the areas of La Fortuna, 25, and Iman. On Friday, one of our boats focused specifically on wahoo and they were able to land 3, while losing 3 more. Throughout the week, we saw other boats that had 1-3 wahoo in the same areas. Most strikes came on X-Raps and Nomad DTXs. The average wahoo size was around 25 pounds. We did see a few 40-45 pounders as well. While trolling for wahoo, some boats also caught dorado, striped marlin, and sailfish (on rigged ballyhoo and lures). This wahoo bite was scattered throughout morning times as some boats caught them as early as 6:30 and others landing a few after 11:00 am. We have not trolled live caballitos and chiwilis in these areas yet. Some of the boats saw schools of chiwilis come up while drifting bait at Iman. We will most likely be focusing on trolling live baits in the upcoming weeks.

To add to the mix, we had good bottom action throughout these areas. Many of our guys focused on bottom this week and tried multiple spots, from San Luis, 25, La Fortuna, and Inner Gordo. We had a good mix of snapper (barred, yellow, dogtooth, and mullet), grouper, and amberjack. We had one grouper come in at 80 pounds. Most of these were caught on chunks and strips of skipjack. We are catching skipjack on the fishing grounds with jigs and sardines. A couple of grouper and 1 amberjack were reported on jigs. One 15-pound rainbow runner was caught while drifting bait.

A 250-pound tuna was landed at the outer Gordo on Thursday while trolling a big skipjack in the hunt for a big marlin. They had 100#mono and #300 leader, allowing them to put extra drag. They landed this fish in less than an hour. On Saturday, one of the bigger private sportfishers landed a massive black marlin a few miles out from Iman on a live skipjack. They hooked this marlin within 5 minutes of slow trolling. This fish ended up dying throughout the 3-hour fight, estimated at around 750 pounds.

Good Fishing, Brian

GORDO BANKS PANGAS
September 7th, 2025

We did not get much of a chance to efficiently fish this week due to Hurricane Lorena’s pathway leaving 3-4 days of heavy rain in our area; much needed rain. It is no surprise that Los Cabos infrastructure cannot handle these rains. Drainage systems are not built for flows of water coming from storms and Hurricanes. That said, most of our neighborhoods and streets were severely damaged as many of them are not paved yet. They have worked hard to clean up this mess in the last 3 days and it has made a great impact. Surprisingly, we did not lose our power throughout these rains, only our water for 3 days. We are seeing another storm possibly develop out in the Pacific at this time; we are hoping it opens up and heads west.

This week, we only fished Monday, Saturday, and Sunday. A few boats tried fishing on Tuesday, though conditions were rough as wind started picking up early in the morning and we started getting the first showers around 11:00 am. 

Saturday and Sunday were challenging as we did not have any live bait available at the marina. Bait guys tried, though the water was very dirty and full of debris. We had to resort to frozen squid, skipjacks that we caught out on the grounds, jigs, and lures.

We only had a couple charters this weekend. On Saturday, we had a handful of nice groupers, one snapper, and one tuna, all at Iman Bank. These groupers all came on strips of skipjack, including the snapper. One small tuna was caught on squid. That same day, 3 big tuna were reported in the same area on squid. Biggest tuna was around 140 lbs., the other 2 were around 100-110. 

On Sunday, bottom action at Iman was much slower. The boat that tried at Iman only had one yellow snapper on squid. They had one 20-pound tuna on a jig, and a handful of triggerfish. They also had a big 45–50-pound Rooster that hit on a chunk of skipjack, they initially thought it was a grouper as it hit towards the bottom. Other boats tried the inner Gordo for marlin and tuna, though there was not much action. One of our boats did land 1 nice amberjack, 1 small tuna, and 4 groupers (star-studded) at the Inner Gordo.

Good Fishing, Brian