Baja Norte is behaving as it does in early spring with off-color water and low sea temperatures. However, local anglers seem optimistic as yellowtail and calico bass are still being caught, plus the usual bottom fishing is filling the coolers. Conditions are improving slowly, while some Baja Sur fishing locations are on fire.
Coronado Islands
Around the Islands, yellowtail are biting in the clean water, but there is still a lot of streaky dirty water. Anglers caught yellowtail, a few legal-sized barracuda, and big calico bass while trolling Mag Rapalas, Nomad DTX Minnows, and slow-trolling sardines.
425 / Tuna Pens / Upper Hidden / 475 Knuckle
There are signs of big fish, though they are not biting well.
Some smaller bluefin around the Upper Hidden Bank produced 20 to 50-pound grade bluefin with an occasional 80 to 150-pounders thrown in, mainly after dark – 100 to 130-pound tackle is necessary. Don’t use anything lighter tackle, or a big tuna will clean your clock! Lately, smaller jigs have worked best – 150 to 300-grams. Nighttime action is about heavy gear and knife jigs.
Also, boats found bonito to 10 pounds on random jig stops, under birds, breezers, sonar marks, and flat spots. The 160-size MadMacs and Halco plugs are the best bet to get bonito jig stops, trolled at seven to eight knots – blue/white, red/white, and Mexican flag colors. Cedar plugs are working well, too.
Ensenada
Recent reports are of wide-open action for log barracuda and yellowtail up to 20 pounds, as well as an impressive array of rockfish and bass.
San Quintín
Locals report reliable results using surface iron for breezing yellowtail, plus good sub-surface and bottom fishing for lingcod, grouper, calico bass, and snapper.
San Felipe
Good fishing was reported for yellowtail, sea bass, red snapper, sierra mackerel, grouper, bonito, barracuda, triggerfish, and mahi-mahi.
Bahía de Los Ángeles
Hot weather and great fishing to match. Good enough to tempt local pangueros to take their family out for the day.
Guerrero Negro
There is an exceptionally good bite of yellowtail jack mackerel, and the weather is very good, a bit hot but very good.
Bahía Asunción
The ocean temperatures are finally starting to warm up to the low 60s, which means that the yellowtail should move in. Bottom fishing for big calico and whitefish is on, and the halibut are here for shore anglers.
As we anxiously waited for yellowtail, seeing a dozen yellowtail carcasses thrown on the beach was encouraging, so somebody caught some!!! …Shari Bondy
Bahía Concepción
Mulegé reports pelagics are making their way back into the area. Dorado, marlin, and sailfish are caught with feathers and skirted trolling lures. Yellowtail and cabrilla are caught on knife jigs. Baqueta are being taken deep at six hundred feet. Inside the bay, there are significant concentrations of freshly hatched bait. We did a short dive and got snapper for dinner. We swam near shore and saw big schools of baby roosterfish and palometa. …Nathan Burbey
Loreto
Fishing was focused on dorado and yellowtail, with satisfactory results. Bait continues to be a challenge, with the sardina harvest almost nonexistent! Mackerel are available at the marina entrance for the early boaters. Some years are poor for sardina, and this year may be such a year. Cabrilla and pargo were not in the mix after a strong June show, and roosters are another missing species after giving a strong show in May. Visiting anglers commented on road conditions for those who drive to Baja. Most of the pavement is good, but the stretches with huge holes seemed to go on for many miles south of LA Bay.
Lopez Mateos
There is lots of good fishing outside Mag Bay: yellowfin tuna, yellowtail, grouper, baqueta, sierra, and dorado (outside using white PVC above the hook). And inside (halibut, grouper, pargo, and corvina (with plastic or live bait – sardina).
La Paz and Muertos Bay
The fish are a healthy 15 to 40-pound mossback yellowtail. Some are biting live mackerel deep, and others are on the surface. Boats were coming back with 2 to 8 yellowtail, with many attached to broken lines, pulled hooks, or, in some cases, they could not stop the fish!
Fishing with our La Paz fleet is the highlight. If you wanted the variety of all the other dozen or so species, fishing with our Las Arenas Fleet was where we had you go out.
Fishing for roosterfish, you might also hook jack crevalle, dorado, trevally, pompano, or one of the larger 50 to 100-pound roosterfish that finally showed!
Fishing over the rocks, we hooked big mullet snapper (pargo lis0), barred pargo (pargo mulato), and dog-tooth snapper (pargo rojo/ pargo parrot/ cubera snapper), as well as cabrilla, yellow snapper, palometas, and others.
East Cape
There has been excellent fishing inshore and offshore, and the beach also produced. Inshore, we have had big roosterfish in the area of Rincon and have been, on average, between 40 and 70 pounds, with fish up to 80 and even 90 pounds caught. Most of the action happens when the bait is slow-trolled in about 50 to 60 feet of water, with a few caught with trolled bait near the surface. Farther offshore, the action for tuna remains strong. There have been multiple porpoise schools holding yellowfin tuna up to 150 pounds. Most of the fish caught are between 8 and 35 pounds, but there are fish mixed in that are much bigger. The yellowfin caught on a variety of methods, from hoochies, top-water plugs, to poppers and fly fishing. We continue to see a strong marlin bite three to seven miles offshore from the Lighthouse to the front of La Ribera. Most boats fishing for them are averaging two to six marlin per boat. Yesterday, we had an event where the entire school chased our lures, and we had four on at once. We landed three out of four!!!
We have been seeing outstanding numbers of fish daily.
Puerto Los Cabos
The main highlight has been the roosterfish bite along our shorelines, a few in the 50 to 60-pound range. The larger-sized roosters are coming from between the La Laguna and Zacaton grounds. We are using live mullet, caballito, and sardina. A few boats reported picking up a few on poppers earlier in the mornings after throwing handfuls of live sardina. While trolling live bait, some boats hooked into nice grouper and snapper with a handful of sierra landed on the live sardina.
Bottom action was good recently. Most boats focused on the grounds from San Luis to Cardon, with San Luis being the most productive for bigger amberjack and grouper. The biggest amberjack caught in June was 92 pounds and bit a live caballito on the bottom. We also had a handful of grouper over 40 pounds, hooked on live caballito and mullet. Anglers landed smaller amberjack and a few bonito on jigs. Cardon still produces good numbers of yellow snapper and pompano using live and dead sardina, and Palmilla has produced good numbers of smaller snapper, grouper, and pompano.
Cabo San Lucas
There were wind waves of 5 or 6 feet caused by 23 to 25-mph winds that factored into the mix. However, they didn’t faze the 42-foot “TEJAS,” with Captain Francisco and Mates Gilberto and Fabrizio, as the boats headed out of the Marina who thought the good old 1150 Spot could pay off once again. As it worked out, it did! Josh and Michelle Gentry, from Greendale, Indiana, had a day they will never forget with 16 Striped Marlin released up to 120 pounds at the dependable 1150 Spot.
”MY WAY,” 45-foot Viking, with Captain Arturo at the helm, and with Mate Daniel using a KITE to catch Eight larger Yellowfin Tuna weighing 30 to 50 pounds with Chuck Myers, Cruz Crawford, Derek Stills, Rhett Myers, Scott Annesley, and Tom Crawford all from Bethany, Oklahoma.
“ANDREA,” a 28-foot Uniflite, with Captain Fernando Noyola and Mate Marcello D fishing live mackerel at Migraino with Anglers Abigail Norouzi and Aurian Norouzi from Texas, who caught a twenty-pound Yellowtail and released a 40-pound Roosterfish.
“TIBURON,“ a 31-foot Bertram with Captain Rosendo and Mates Juarez Gomez and Mario Juarez, treated their group Connor Mikolajczy, Melissa Mikolajczyk, Jason Freitag, Kevin, and Stacey Freitag, from Texas, to a banner day by hooking and releasing a Striped Marlin, a Dorado and a Silky Shark on the 1150 Spot.
Gary Graham
That Baja Guy
thatbajaguy@gmail.com
With more than five decades of fishing experience – from light tackle and fly to offshore billfish – Gary Graham has experienced all aspects of fishing in the Southern California and Baja waters. His observations of species behavior, tackle and techniques are always from his unique perspective, earning him the respect of his peers as well as anglers who eagerly follow his Baja reports and features.
Gary maintained a home at East Cape in Baja Sur for more than 18 years and still spends nearly half of each year exploring the entire peninsula in his self-contained Roadtrek van. He observes everything Baja, from the mysteries of a tide pool on a deserted Baja beach filled with tiny sea creatures to the largest billfish in the sea.