Sea of Cortez Weather Conditions:
January 2, 2012 was a pretty calm day for us down here in Cabo in terms of the weather. The morning had a nice light breeze that created a tiny wind chop near shore. Offshore, the wind was a bit heavier, but still less than 10-12 knots. Temperatures were hoovering just over 78 degrees for the majority of the day and the ocean temperature ranged from the low to mid 70’s. In the afternoon and towards dusk, the weather became very calm. Winds died down to almost nothing at all, and the ocean turned to glass before it was dark.
Fishing for Bonito
Although there were some yellow dorado flags flying on some of the fishing fleets boats in Palmilla Bay, our boat did not catch any. We fished again in the afternoon, and trolled three rods in back of the boat at about 7-8 knots. We used two plugs, and one “mexican flag feather lure”. The diving plug lures worked the best. The feather didn’t even get a single bite from any fish.
We were only able to catch football sized bonito, and in total we landed 5 in the two hours of afternoon fishing. We released all of the fish, and although I was hoping to chop up a few of them and use them for bait for grouper the next day, the boat’s captain would not allow for that. When you are reeling up a fish like bonito, you don’t know for sure what you have on the end of the line. There’s always a chance it could be a nice and tasty yellow fin tuna, but of course it might just be bonito. Thankfully, the fish we caught today were super strong and were pulling out line until the very end. We never used the gaff that was sitting in the back of the boat, since again the captain didn’t want to get fish blood flying all over the boat. We already had enough cleaning when we got on-board. We were lucky enough to have a flock of about ten pelicans sitting on the boat all day, pooping all over the place. If it wasn’t for the washdown hose on the boat, we would probably have been sitting in fresh white pelican poop. Let’s just say the fishing today was a bit stinkier than usual.
Two days from now on Wednesday we are headed back out again to fish the waters of the Gordo Banks up the Sea of Cortez. The goal is to leave a bit earlier in the morning, and we are expecting to finally get some live bait.
Marlin Fishing:
Very few reports of marlin caught came over the radio today. There was one boat out of Cabo San Lucas which reported 3 stripped marlin before noon, and the captain said that all the fish were taken at the Golden Gate Bank on the Pacific Ocean side of Cabo.