A trio of locals, Jose Arturo, left, skipper Nico and Julio Zumaya, right, brought in two tuna late Saturday afternoon. One was 242 pounds and the other was the season's first super cow, it weighed in at 335 pounds. Last year’s Tuna Jackpot winners took top honors with a 213-pound fish. PHOTO COURTESY OF GORDO BANKS PANGAS.

For details on the Tuna Tourney, coming Nov. 7-10, 2012, see the previous blogs or go to www.loscabostunajackpot.com, the official website of the event for the past 14 years.

Now... The latest news from Cabo: 

SAN JOSE DEL CABO (LOS CABOS)—Saved by the bell, well cow bell that is, things are heating up as the countdown to WON’s Los Cabos Tuna Jackpot on Nov. 7-10 is just a few weeks away. More tuna over 200 pounds were taken on the Gordo Banks this past week including one super-sized 335-pound tuna.

“The cow bells are ringing on the Gordo Banks,” Eric Brictson from Gordo Banks Pangas said. “There were more of the larger yellowfin tuna caught this past week. The Gordo Banks produced quite a few yellowfin tuna over 100 pounds and maybe 12 tuna over 200 pounds were landed by the combined Puerto Los Cabos fleet of pangas and larger sportfishers. The largest we actually weighed in was 245 pounds until the weekend.”

“Most of these tuna were found around the Inner Gordo Bank, where they hit on whole baits, as well as chunk bait,” Brictson said. “A handful of fish were hooked throughout the morning hours but the local private charters were having a bit better success during the afternoon sessions.”

“One example of the afternoon bite came on Saturday when we were asked to go down to the docks late in the afternoon/early evening to weigh in a pair of tuna,” Brictson said. “One was 242 pounds and the other was the season's first super cow, it weighed in at 335 pounds and was caught by a trio of locals.”

Brictson said things were also looking up for the Bisbee’s Black & Blue later this month and other marlin events. “On Tuesday evening there was a black marlin brought in by another trio of local La Playita anglers that was weighed in at 640 pounds,” Brictson said. “That’s the largest black we have heard about so far this season. And remember, the previous week, there was a blue marlin landed out of Cabo San Lucas that weighed 720 pounds.”

“The Iman Bank was holding schooling yellowfin tuna, though there was no consistent bite for these fish,” Brictson said. “Some days they would come up and feed on sardina late in the morning, but other days they just did not come up at all. With lots of skipjack competing for the same food source, tuna do not like feeding at the same time as the skippies. The tuna in this area were in the 12- to 20-pound class, with a few up to 40 pounds. On the good days, charters were accounting for a handful of tuna, as well as dorado in their mix.”

Brictson said dorado were being found spread out, with the greater numbers congregated around floating debris. “Most of the dorado were less than 20 pounds, though we did see a few trophy-sized bulls up to 45 pounds,” he added.

“We haven’t had any runs on wahoo yet, but with all of the bait ball activity, we expect to see more of these in the counts soon,” Brictson said. “A few wahoo to 40 pounds were landed north of Punta Gorda, striking on Rapala type lures and bait. With many of the boats now trolling larger baits on the offshore grounds, this is a good way to tell if the wahoo are actually around. They really like to clip off these same baits, more often than not they do so without ever being noticed or even becoming hooked.”

“The bottom action consisted of miscellaneous pargo/snapper, cabrilla, amberjack, dogtooth, grouper and even roosterfish,” Brictson said. “As we have been seeing now for several fall seasons, out of their normal inshore habitat, the roosterfish this time of year will hang around the offshore structure of Iman, La Fortuna and San Luis and all of these roosterfish have been larger fish, 30 to 60 pounds. Anglers told many stories of drift fishing while using live skipjack off the bottom, taking freight train strikes, resulting in cut off lines. We haven’t had many amberjack recently, but that could change at any time, though the fall season is the time when the majority of anglers would prefer to target the pelagic surface species.”

Brictson said he not heard many reports on billfish, except the 640-pound black marlin out of La Playita on Tuesday afternoon. “We’ve had just a few sailfish and smaller striped marlin found while trolling the blue water,” he said. “But we expect to hear more reports of big marlin hook ups in the coming days, as this is the time the tournament teams start to scout fish for the upcoming events. Much larger crowds of anglers are now arriving, as the coming weeks are always one of the busiest times of year in the Los Cabos area. Advance charter reservations are definitely recommended this time of year.”

Swells were light this past week, which gave the inshore a chance to finally start clearing after all of the recent rain runoff. “Commercial pangeros worked hard to find sufficient supplies of live bait, particularly sardina, which are the preferred all around baitfish. Inshore off of Palmilla and to the north of Punta Gorda they were finding scattered schools of baitfish, though it was not easy to keep up with the supply and demand. There were also caballito in the marina and on the fishing grounds there were bolito, skipjack, chihuil and cocinero, but more skipjack than anything else.”

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita and Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out 110 charters for the week, with anglers accounting for 1 black marlin, 7 striped marlin, 9 sailfish, 8 wahoo, 11 amberjack, 5 dogtooth snapper, 18 cabrilla, 194 dorado, 85 yellowfin tuna, 22 various pargo species and 5 roosterfish.  

 CABO SAN LUCAS REPORT : Gearing up for WON’s Tuna Tournament coming up in November, WON reader Brad Stevenson, who splits his time between Cabo and Chicago brought in several tuna, including a 2OO-plus pound tuna. This past week a better bite was also found on the Pacific side.

“The tuna in the picture was one of nine landed on my boat, Maybe Manana,” Stevenson said. “My captain, Vincente Bojorquez and my deck hands kept me busy all day. We fished on the Pacific side north of Todos Santos and the bruisers were brought in on a kite.”

“It seems that blue marlin season is upon us, hot weather makes them show up,” said Tracy Ehrenberg of Pisces Sportfishing. “We started out with a bang, when Pisces 46-foot Bertram Attitude Adjustment landed a 722 pounder, followed by one half that size at 384 pounds, but nevertheless it would have been a qualifier in a tournament.”

“Now a word about blue marlin, yes, we would like to see more of them released and we suggest all anglers do so, but they are more delicate than the stripers and die much more easily in the fight,” Ehrenberg said. “It is important to catch them as quickly as possible to give them a better chance of surviving. Often anglers, especially first time marlin fishermen, are unprepared for the strength of these creatures and it can feel like you have hooked a truck, so make sure you are in good shape and don’t give up.”

“Valerie had a fabulous day at Los Arcos and also off the Old Lighthouse and managed to release four sailfish and a blue marlin between three anglers,” Ehrenberg said. “The blue marlin was caught on a dorado colored lure. That same day Pisces 38-foot Blackfin, the C Rod fished just 7 miles from the Old Lighthouse and caught a blue marlin around 300 pounds and 9 dorado up to 20 pounds. Our last blue marlin of the week was aboard our 28-foot Uniflite, the Adriana at Los Arcos. This healthy fish was around 250 pounds and took a purple lure, before being successfully released; they also had 6 dorado.’

Ehrenberg said striped marlin in the 100- to 130-pound class were also caught this past week at diverse locations on the Pacific side and preferred bait. “Sailfish were the most widely caught billfish and like the striped marlin wanted live bait or dead ballyhoo on the Pacific side. Forty-one percent of our anglers caught billfish, giving us a total of 27, consisting of 14 sails, 8 stripes and 5 blues – all but three billfish were released.”

“Dorado were by far the most prolific fish in our waters this past week and why not, it’s the right time for it and the right conditions,” Ehrenberg said. “In fact 74 percent of our boats caught between 1 and 17 with weights ranging from 18 to 40 pounds. One medium size dorado goes a long way when it comes to dinner time; it is very mild tasting, easy to cook and moist. Remaining floating debris from the rains made dorado easy to spot as they congregated underneath it as well as being found spread out on the Pacific side. The majority of dorado took lures, though some preferred ballyhoo. Our total dorado count was 242 fish or to put it another one around 4,840 pounds.”

Ehrenberg said tuna catches were at 20 percent, with boats catching between 1 and 13 though none were of notable size. “With only a 20 percent chance at tuna, there were only a few fortunate boats that found them,” she said. Our 31-foot Bertram, Rebecca, fishing 7 miles off Elias Calles, boated 13 yellowfin up to 25 pounds, 1 dorado and 4 skipjacks. Total tuna tally was 68 fish.” 

“It was nice to see a bit more action on wahoo, though again, no really big fish, with the average to 35 pounds,” Ehrenberg said. Our Falcon caught the largest one at 44 pounds on a petrolero lure at Cerro de Arena, they also boated dorado.”   

Larry Edwards, reporting for the Gaviota Sportfishing and Fish Cabo fleets said dorado were definitely the fish of the week and the majority of the fish were in the quality sizes of 30 to 45 pounds or so. “The Tuna Time, fishing with the Gerald Myer group, landed 5 dorado, all in the 30- to 40-pound range along with a single wahoo in the mid 40-pound range and released a sailfish on their first fishing day of a 4-day charter,” he said.

  JUST PRACTICING A LITTLE—With plans to fish WON’s Tuna Jackpot again this year next, Brad Stevenson, on his boat Maybe Manana, came down for a few days to practice. PHOTO COURTESY OF BRAD STEVENSON