GORDO BANKS PANGAS
November 8th, 2026
The annual largest tournaments are now over. As expected, the Tuna Jackpot Tournament was very competitive. Most of the bigger tuna came from Outer Gordo. There were 5 tuna over the 200-pound mark, with the biggest one weighing 220 lbs. Many teams that did not hit the scales reported fish in the 80 to 130 pound range. They decided not to weigh these fish as you needed a fish closer to 200 to compete. Congratulations to local team “North Star” for winning most of the jackpot tuna money on Day 1 with a 165 lb. tuna. There was a bigger (170 lb.) tuna this day, though that team was only in the $1k tuna jackpot. Team North Star took home $494k. Last year, this same team took home $572k. In 2023, they took home $536k. Safe to say, they know what they’re doing!
Water temperatures are now averaging 85-86 degrees; seems that some areas cooled off a bit more (84 degrees) after strong South winds on Thursday. For the most part, ocean conditions have been favorable, though we have started seeing South winds pick up in the afternoons. This Sunday, we experienced moderate North winds all morning throughout our fishing grounds.
Early in the week (Monday mostly), we saw good wahoo action towards Vinorama and Iman. Some boats were able to land a few early in the morning on X-Raps, DTXS, and rigged ballyhoo, though most of them came on live bait. These boats found schools of small skipjack at Iman that they used to troll for these wahoo. As the week went by, the bite slowed down significantly. On Monday, one of the pangas was able to land 5 wahoo! The biggest wahoo caught this week was 50 pounds.
The tuna bite at Inner and Outer Gordo remains spotty, though we are seeing good opportunities most days. More tuna came from Outer Gordo this week, especially the bigger ones. Most boats reported hooking up either early in the morning or later around mi-day. Local commercial guys also did well later in the afternoon. These tuna came on a variety of baits, such as strips of squid, chunks of skipjacks, live chiwili, skipjack, and bulito, and some smaller tuna on dead sardines. The average size tuna at the fillet table was 55 to 90 pounds, though we had many in the 120-to-180-pound range.
We are still seeing dogtooth and grouper towards Vinorama, though currents haven’t been ideal to efficiently focus on bottom fishing. On Friday, one of the pangas landed a nice snapper and grouper, while losing 6 or 7 others. This same boat tried the same area on Saturday and could not get any bites.
The tuna, wahoo, and bottom bite remain spotty, though we continue to see good opportunities. As the water start to cool down more, we expect to see more consistency, maybe some dorado as well.
Good Fishing, Brian
