GORDO BANKS PANGAS
March 31st, 2024
Happy Easter! We are now seeing most of our beaches crowded with local families. Throughout Easter’s weekend, it is tradition that you go beach camping with family and friends. It is nice to see many of our captains take some well-deserved time off with their loved ones. Temperatures were ideal for beach activities with highs in the low 80s. It was a windy week with currents predominantly from the North.
Our yellowfin tuna bite is now very slow, lucky if you get one bite all day. We are continuing to see some big ones, upwards of 100 lbs. chasing sardines, though we have not been able to get them to bite. Most of these tuna were spotted at Iman and San Luis. Some captains reported seeing more activity after midday and late afternoons.
We had a few big tuna at the beginning of the week. The biggest tuna brought in was close to 230 pounds. A tough fight on 50# test and high winds on a 22 ft boat. Our fleet also brought in a nice 80 pounder after a long battle with a Sea Lion that was able to take most of the stomach part, leaving the loins untouched. This same boat landed a nice 35–40-pound wahoo on a jig. A few smaller wahoo were caught this week while drifting sardines for tuna. The tuna bite died down throughout the week as we didn’t see any caught for 3 days. We only saw one small tuna caught on Friday. Most of the captains reported difficulty drifting and trolling with sardines as the needle fish were a nuisance.
The main focus this week was the bottom and inshore. We are catching grouper, snapper, and amberjack while fishing rock structures at Iman, La Fortuna, and Cardon. Surprisingly, most of this action came from sardines on the bottom, not a lot of action on jigs.
On most days, we are catching our Sierra (Spanish mackerel) limits on sardines. The best action seems to be coming from Cardon. There were some nice 10-pound Sierras in the mix. While trolling sardines closer to shore, we were able to catch some dorado. This weekend, a few boats were lucky to find big schools of dorado as they were able to catch their limits. Closer to the shore, we continue to see smaller Roosters and Jacks. The most productive area for Roosters seems to be La Laguna.
Good Fishing, Brian
