GORDO BANKS PANGAS
Dec. 10th, 2023
Weathers conditions continue to be ideal for anglers and families arriving for the Holiday season. We are enjoying a few cooler mornings in the low 60s and beautiful sunny days in the mid 80s.
Action throughout this week remained consistent and similar to last week. The main target continues to be dorado and wahoo. It seems that the wahoo bite has slowed down a bit. This week, it was hard to catch a the chiwili at the Gordo. The boats that looked for them were lucky if they caught 2-3 bait fish in almost 2 hours. While fishing for chiwili, boats were mostly catching green jacks, also known as cocinero. Even though not the favorite bait to troll with, the cocineros did catch several nice wahoo this week. Not many strikes fast trolling Rapalas or rigged ballyhoo. A few of the smaller 10-15 pound wahoo were caught while casting shinny jigs on the surface, most strikes coming closer to the boat.
The dorado bite was the main highlight this week. Many anglers mentioned that they couldn’t focus on the wahoo as the dorado were taking most of their bait. Most boats have been able to load up on their dorado limit with nice sized fish. We are continuing to see big bulls, with many in the 30–40-pound range. As many of the boats are catching their limit, they are also releasing multiple nice ones on the daily, which makes for a great catch and release experience.
Best fishing grounds this week for wahoo have been La Fortuna, Cardón, and Punta Gorda. The dorado are scattered throughout La Fortuna all the way to Palmilla, with some bigger ones caught at La Fortuna and inner Gordo. We have also heard that the dorado bite is wide open on the Cabo Pacific side. A few striped marlin and sailfish have also been hooked while fishing for dorado and wahoo.
The tuna bite at the Gordo remains slow. We did hear of a few bigger fish hooked later in the afternoon, with one weighing in at 197 pounds. Again, out of 10-15 boats, only a couple have been able to hook up. These occasional tunas have been hooked on strips of squid, live/dead sardinas, and live chiwili.
Not a lot of bottom action at this time. We have seen a couple of snappers caught (red snapper and bared pargo) while jigging on different structures. A few sierra and rooster fish were also caught while slow trolling live bait closer to the shore.
Good Fishing, Brian
