Report submitted by 'HWK'
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Sea of Cortez Offshore Report
Gulf of California
August 27-30th, 2008
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We arrived at Rancho Leonero around noon on Wednesday, and hit the
surf with some long rods only to find out that it's almost impossible to
get a bait past the needle fish. After an hour or two of needle fish we head
to the lodge for a cold brew and some guacamole and salsa.
We then headed back to the room to get rigged up for the morning.
Woke up around 5 and had a few cups of coffee and watched the sun rise and
met up with Paco down on the beach to get squared away with a super panga
for the day. After scoring a couple of scoops of sardines we headed to the
tuna grounds. Not 5 minutes after throwing a few hand fulls of bait in the
water we had a full blown tuna frenzy at the back of the boat. We both hammered
a few skipjacks and I finally hooked up with a yellowfin.
After a dozen or so skipjacks, Gia hooked up to a yellowfin
on her Stradic 6000 and 17lb sufix T . She was a little under gunned with
that rig and ended up playing this fish out for well over an hour.
She takes a much needed break and cools down while I nail a few more skipjacks
We then throw a few lures in the water and troll our way south to do some
rooster fishing.
The abundance of needle fish really made rooster fishing tough. We
saw a lot of them but never hooked up. After getting back to the lodge we
clean up and have an adult beverage or two and sit down to a wonderful meal.
The next day we pretty much repeated the day before, except we didn't
land any yellowfin. We did have a few sails and 2 stripers come up in our
spread with no hook ups. I probably should have dropped back a live bait
to seal the deal, but I was a little too excited to react. At that point
we were exhausted from from the non stop battles and headed back for a good
meal and a good night's sleep.
Day 3 we watched a beautiful sun rise and headed down to the dock.
The day before I had told the guide that we really wanted to spend
the day rooster fishing and he suggested that we should try bigger bait so
that we would not be constantly raped by needle fish. Indio was on a mission.
He hit the bait boats in search of large mullet with no luck. After him getting
pissed off and making the bait guys give us free sardines we head north towards
Buena Vista to the other bait boats. We only managed one big mullet and some
large mackerel. After a hour boat ride we get to where the tuna had moved
to and start to free line some baits. Instantly Gia hooks up to a monster
dorado. We had it within gaffing range when the damn thing made a run right
under the boat and cut her off. After a few skipjacks I decided to drop a
mackerel down to the bottom which paid off big time with a fat cubera!!!
This is a fish I have always wanted to catch. :rockin
Gia continues to freeline various baits and I keep dropping baits
to the bottom. I ended up with a small AJ and getting rocked by another monster
fish. We reel up and head south to Indio's secret rooster spot and have lunch
on the way. Indio was by far the nicest guide that I have ever had. He had
brought some homemade tuna salad that his wife had made from the yellowfin
we had caught the previous day. We chowed down and rested with high hopes
of a monster rooster.
We arrive at " the spot" and get the mullet out and slow troll.
Not 2 minutes later Gia has a rooster hooked up. This little guy hit a 12
to 14 inch mullet.
We continue to troll with sardines and have tons of roosters and needle
fish buzzing behind the boat. The baits were getting hit by the needles before
the roosters would get a chance to take the bait. We did this for about an
hour before I got a micro rooster.
Our guide Indio wanted to move so we headed north stopping to look at the
sea lions on the way.
We worked several different spots only to catch every other kind of
inshore fish from ladyfish, pargo, bonitos, .... We did see a lot of roosters
but just could not get hooked up.
The next morning we spent a little time walking around checking out
the place and snorkeling in front of the lodge. Here are a few miscellaneous
pics.
We will definitely be heading back here next year in search of the Grande
rooster.
- HWK
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