GORDO BANKS PANGAS
March 2nd, 2024
Springtime is just around the corner, a favorite time of year for locals and young spring breakers in Los Cabos. This was a beautiful week with perfect temperatures and slight winds. As unusual as it is for this time of year, we did see a good number of anglers and charters this week as the fishing continues to be hot. We are seeing many clients come from La Paz and Los Barriles as we continue to catch good numbers of nice-sized yellowfin.
Yellowfin tuna was the main target species this week, the best action still coming from Iman Bank. The fact that we continue to get good amounts of sardines in the monrings, has allowed us to efficiently target these tuna. A main point to highlight is that we did upgrade in size this week. The average tuna was closer to 30 pounds, though we did see many fish over 45 pounds. The biggest tuna weighed this week came in at 88 pounds. Many boats reported bigger fish breaking 40 and 50# test after long battles. Most of this activity came from live sardines, though we did hear of a few bigger tuna hooked on strips of squid.
While fishing for tuna, we have seen large numbers of white bonitas, almost not allowing us to fish for tuna on some days. Many boats reported releasing double digits of white bonitas. White bonita is good eating, so we also saw limits at the fillet station. Within the same area, we are still catching dorado, though the numbers and size haven’t been as good as previous weeks. We are seeing more of the smaller females and not many of the larger bulls. The marlin bite also slowed down significantly as compared to last week.
We continue to see wahoo at the fillet station almost daily. Most of these wahoo have been caught while fishing live sardines for tuna. A few bigger wahoo were also hooked on strips of squid and skipjack. A few nicer ones were also hooked on Rapalas earlier in the morning. The biggest wahoo this week came in at 52 pounds.
In terms of bottom fishing, we are seeing a good variety of snappers (bared, yellow, and red), triggerfish, amberjack, and grouper. Most of the snappers and groupers are caught on sardines while fishing the bottom or strips of skipjack. We did see a few big amberjack this week, the biggest one weighing 71 pounds. Towards the end of this week, many boats within the fleet were hooking big amberjacks with live white bonitas. Unfortunately, most of these hookups ended up breaking up in the rock structures. We are excited to see how this bottom action progresses throughout March.
Towards the end of this week, a few boats started scouting San Luis Bank as Iman was overcrowded by larger boats. San Luis is also showing good numbers of nice sized yellowfin. We will keep monitoring this bite throughout next week.
Good Fishing, Brian
