Coronado Islands
Recently the water around the Islands has been trying to clean up a little bit, with North Island having some clean 62-degree water at times, but South Island generally remaining dirty and off color green. Even in the clean water, though, there hasn’t been much sign of yellowtail – only a few bonito.
Tijuana Bull Ring and below
There are still a few yellowtail and barracuda around. Look for the areas where the dolphin are feeding and then slow-troll a sardine or an X-Rap. Sand bass and sculpin fishing remains only so-so, but if you are lucky you’ll catch a couple of fish.
230 / 371 / Upper Hidden
Plenty of bluefin around but getting them to bite is the challenge.
They are all mixed up in size with spots of 20- to 30-pound fish being found next to spots of 100+ pound fish. Boats in the area are flying the kite and using the yummy flyer and some are fishing the double-trouble rig. Both are having some success.
The bluefin are being found on sonar marks, breezers and puddlers and if you find a big spot of shearwaters just sitting on the water these very likely have bluefin under them.
Ensenada
It started at 11:00 a.m. — smooth seas at 21 miles above the Banda Bank aboard Tin Man when Lee Madding, owner and his team for the day, Steve, Mike and Captain Hando, used a lite rod with Penn 12LT, 60-pound test with bonito belly as bait, for what they thought was a mako shark until a swordfish surfaced with their bait in its mouth. The fight ensued for nearly seven hours all fighting the monster that they estimated to be 12-feet long; they had it alongside the boat seven (7) times but couldn’t subdue the thrashing fish.
Finally, the exhausted crew gave up and cut the line because of angler fatigue. Later back at their slip Madding observed, “If you weren’t there you wouldn’t understand how under-gunned we were with the tackle — it just didn’t work out,” he concluded.
San Quintin
Very quiet. Best catch reported was a huge bat ray inside the bay.
Cedros Island
Season is just getting underway and locals are raving about the excellent calico bass bite for fish up to 8 pounds.
Bahia de Los Angeles
There is plenty of bait south of town and in front of town. Windy conditions made it tough to make it out to the islands, so most boats stayed close to shore.
Down south below Barnaby Reef there are some gulf grouper and pargo. At least one boat found a yellowtail on the surface that bit surface iron.
When the wind subsided later in the week, the boats made it out to the big island and were rewarded with limits of yellowtail a few miles east of the southern tip using fly-lined mackerel that were caught close to shore.
Gonzaga Bay
The second of the four Pesca La Baja events will be held at San Luis Gonzaga, June 16-17 and will be based at Hotel Alfonsina’s, followed by the third at Bahía de Los Ángeles, on July 21-22 at the local launch ramp. http://www.pescalabaja.com/
All in all the wind in the upper portion of the Sea of Cortez still remains an issue, blowing intermittently.
