GORDO BANKS PANGAS
October 27th, 2024
The 2024 Bisbee’s Black and Blue tournament ended last Friday, and it was one for the books. With 15 Black and 108 Blue Marlin, there were 13 fish that came in over the 300-pound mark. Captain Chame and Freddy on the “Burro” team brought in another Black Marlin (320 lbs.), not as big as their first one (387 lbs.). The most impressive catch was a 634-pound Black Marlin that was hooked at 8:30 am and landed at 7:57 pm; almost a 12-hour fight on a 33ft boat. They made it to the scales at 8:40 pm, right before they closed at 9. Big Congratulations to all the winners as there were many captains from our local marina that landed huge checks.
Our marina was not as busy as the Bisbee’s in Cabo took over most of the tourists for the week. On our end, we are noticing cooler morning temperatures in the low 70s and high 60s. Most of our boats fished towards San Luis, Vinorama, and Iman. These areas continue to show the small yellowfin tuna, with most productivity coming from Iman. It has been a bit tricky to catch these tuna on some days as the skipjacks are beating them to the bait. For bait, we are using live/dead sardines and strips of squid. We saw a few more dorado this weekend while drifting and trolling for these tuna, though nothing big. A handful of sailfish were also caught and released in the same area with live sardines.
A few nice wahoo were caught at Vinorama and Iman. Most of these wahoo were caught trolling XRaps/Nomads/Ballyhoo, though a couple were caught slow trolling small skipjacks (live). The bigger Wahoo preferred the live bait. The wahoo bite was spotty throughout the week as we only saw them on a couple days. This weekend, many boats pounded the area and did not have much to show for.
While drifting for tuna at Iman, some of the boats were also drifting strips of skipjack for a dogtooth on the bottom. We did see many snapper this week, a few close to 50 pounds. Some boats also caught these snapper at the Inner Gordo. Our captains reported more action throughout the early morning.
Good Fishing, Brian
