Cabo San Lucas (May 21st, 2009)

Hi Folks,

Those folks who decided to ignore the flu scare and come to Cabo this last week had some pretty good fishing and uncrowded beaches. The planes that came into Cabo this last week were half full of vacationers. Its up substantially from the last month. Three weeks ago we had planes coming down almost empty. One guest had 15 people on his plane. Another positive note is that the Carnival cruise lines are starting to come back into port this week.

The inshore fishing has been red hot! That is red for Snapper hot. Just ask Baja Anglers founder "Dan Dreyer". Dan usually cant find fishing days in May as we are normally all booked up. Seeing that we had some space on our boats, he hopped on a flight and was down here right away. Dan loves to fish for striped marlin, and the marlin fishing is pretty good right now, but when he heard we had schools of Cubera and Colorado Snapper all over the place, it was pargo time. On his first days he had some good fishing and was hooking and landing 4 to 6 snappers a day on the fly. So I turned in my surfboard for the fly rod and and decided to join Dan on his outing. Sure glad I did, as it turned out to be an epic day on the water.

As soon as we turned the corner to the Pacific beaches we saw our first school of snapper. Dan cast his fly into the bunch and hooked a big Colorado snapper, after about a 10 minute fight, he landed it. The fish was about 25 # beauty and would be the biggest snapper we caught that day. I wanted a few fish for the grill, so I pulled out a light spinning rod and a plug and hooked another snapper, this fish was about 16 lbs and was the smallest fish we would catch that day. Dan was soon on again, so I picked up the fly rod and hooked another nice snapper right away. A local captain in a panga came over and saw the action. He started fishing right on top of the fish and put them down. We tried to tell him to back off a little and he would catch a few fish, but he wouldn't listen. Now this guy is supposed to be a fly fishing panga captain " Yea Right". He didn't have a clue and he was using bait! We left him to the school and went looking for another school.

We found one within a half hour or so, and the fishing was right on again. We caught a good 3 to 4 fish right away and here comes the same guy and parks his panga right on top of the fish. Drops bait over board and doesn't catch a thing. I mean we were casting our flies at his boat. Anyway, rather than make a issue we left him to the school and took off again.

It wasn't long after that that we found another school, and as soon as we stop the boat, the same guy starts heading our way. Not this time. I positioned the boat so he couldn't get easily into the school and we hooked another 3 fish right in front of him. His guest must have been fairly upset, because he finagled his way in on top of the school.

I finally spoke up and told him that he couldn't fish worth a crap, and that he had manners of an oaf (fly fishing guide my ass, this guy can maybe throw some sardines for fly fishers, thats it). Anyway, I blew it off as we were having a stellar day and we ended up finding more fish.... Now with snappers, you end up catching about one third of what you hook. They have incredibly hard mouths and its difficult to keep a hook in them. We landed 12 beautiful trophy sized fish that day. We probably had 40 hook ups or so.

What a fantastic fishing day!!!

We kept all 12 fish. Dan and I kept a few fish for dinner. Actually we have been eating fish ever since, my kids are starting to ask for beef tacos... Anyway, these snappers are some of the finest eating fish on the planet!

The rest of the snappers we gave to our Capt. Nazario and his mate Ulysses. They had a church function coming up and they wanted to have a cook out. Thats going to be one heck of a party!

The way Nazario cooks his snapper is great. He takes the fish and guts it and gills it. He scrapes the scales off and then cuts some vertical slashes on each side of the fish. He then stuffs it with vegetables and wraps it in tin foil and throws it on the charcoal grill over a medium to low burn. After about a half hour he flips the fish and lets it sit for another 30 minutes or more. Until the tin foil turns off color. My mouth is watering as I am writing this. This is a great way to cook your fish and is absolutely bullet proof. The fish comes out moist and tasty and melts in your mouth.

I shot some video of the adventure and should have the footage up in the next few days.

The sierra fishing is pretty good, not what it was a few weeks ago, but you can still catch a ton in a days outing. Smaller roosterfish and jacks along the Pacific side. Not too much happening inshore towards San Jose.

The offshore marlin fishing is starting to pick up. A friend of mine was fishing off Cabo yesterday and spotted over 50 striped marlin just 5 to 10 miles offshore. He landed and released 4 nice sized fish. All over 100 lbs.

A few dorado here and there, but not too many yet.

We had a pretty good YF tuna run for a while, but they have moved on. May and June are usually pretty good YF tuna fishing off the San Jose Banks. Expect the tuna fishing to improve as the water temperature warms up some and the water turns a little more blue.

I sent out a video link to John Weber's great fishing day in the last report. I got some emails saying that they couldn't find the video... Sorry, It didn't go through. Here is the correct link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxTflxggFtY

Pictured below is Dan Dreyer with a beautiful fly caught Colorado snapper. We were on our boats flying fish 3 with Capt. Nazario.

Tight Lines,
Grant

Grant Hartman
Baja Anglers
Website: baja-anglers.com
E-mail: info@baja-anglers.com
Phone Mexico 011-52(624)143-4995
Phone US (619) 270-1124
Grant Hartman's Baja Anglers YouTube Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/BajaGrant