La Playita/SJDCabo/Gordo Banks 4/16-4/19

[LEXPRO]

Just got back from my trip yesterday and it was lots of fun for the money. Spent $1000 to fish 4 days on a panga and it was alot of fun for the money. La Playita Hotel was nice and quiet and cheap 75 bucks a day. The new marina they built for the pangas is very nice. The guide Jesus from Gordo Banks Pangas was a great fisherman and i really appreciated how hard he worked to keep us on the fish.

Day 1 we started with fishing some rocks in 60 ft of water and caught several different types of snappers (cubera, tiger?, yellowfin) and groupers which we were happy to keep. I only had one bite a jig and the rest were caught on dead bait (so it wouldnt swim up) freelined. The captains are constantly sharing info on the radio so we headed to a spot in 300 ft of water where they was alot of bait. On the way we saw alot of mantas jumping and doing aerobatics which was very cool. I couldnt get a bite on a jig so we trolled 2 rapalas on my spinners around the bait and caught alot of mexican bonito and they are fun on spinners. These bonito have a white meat and look like little dogtooth tunas. The crazy part was when a huge sea lion showed up and grabbed a fish i was reeling in. Now i had a 300 pound sea lion on my 7ft OTI/Stella 8k i couldnt turn the beast so i tighted the drag and cut him off but my rapala was long gone. We saw some whales while we headed back to a spot that had rocks in the surf. When we got back to the surf we still had a few hours so i spent that time casting lures and sardines towards the rocks. The Tuna Hunter JR had no bites, Frezy popper had a sierra and a jack. I also threw a storm shad and it got bit by a little grouper that came out of the rocks and grabbed it. The rest of the action was sierra, trevally, snapper, and roosterfish. Then we headed back and have some fresh grouper for lunch. Will post more soon...

[LEXPRO]

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[LEXPRO]

Day 2 the wind had picked up and we fished a few more deeper rock piles and the only fish i caught on a jig was a skipjack. We ran back inshore and caught more sierras, 2 nice groupers, more roosters, snappers and trevallys on sardines freelined near the rocks and called it a day.

[LEXPRO]

Day 3 we started off fishing in front of the westin los cabos near the rocks. We trolled live sardines and caught all the big sierra you could want to catch. We also caught one grouper trolling the sardines. The swells are very intimidating when you are trolling in such a small boat near the shore. If you got on the wrong side of the wave you are slammed into shore. After we were done with that we decided to troll in deeper water still in sight of shore back toward la playita. I put out my Avet 30 with a purple and black lure and the capt put out his daiwa sealine 450 with a orange and black. We trolled for 15 minutes and i wasnt prepared for it but the daiwa started screaming. I grabbed it and and set the hook and the line started peeling. It was full of 50lb mono and we got down under half before he stopped. The reel was super hot and the drag was smoked becuase the reel wouldnt take any line and there was a bad smell coming from it. I couldnt get my gloves on fast enough to keep from getting burnt but my fiance was quick to put the belt me. When the reel cooled off we cranked down the drag and tried to catch him. Several other marlin in the distance were free jumping past ours. We did finally catch the fish and had to palm the reel to keep him close enough to unhook and get a photo. My fiance was a little nervous with a splashing big fish when he was next to the boat and the pic of him jumping you really cant see him, so we didnt get the greatest photos but it sure was fun...

[Snagged]

My old eyes could be wrong, but it looks like a jumping fish in the first photo.

[LEXPRO]

Originally Posted by Snagged

My old eyes could be wrong, but it looks like a jumping fish in the first photo.

yea thats it but you really cant see much...

[JerseyBrian]

Great report Lex! It just reminds of how good the inshore bite is off SJ del Cabo. That place is always worth another trip. I'm jealous you caught Roosterfish!

Originally Posted by LEXPRO

Day 3 we started off fishing in front of the westin los cabos near the rocks. We trolled live sardines and caught all the big sierra you could want to catch. ..

That's exactly where I smoked'em on my last day of fishing there as well.

Brian

[fathom]

Exellente! hard to beat all that fishing at that price!

[ksong]

My friend fished out of beach in front of Somar Hotel, Cabo San Lucas last week and caught over 100 small roosterfish in 5 - 10 lbs range on diamond jigs for three days. He even lost one tuna in 30 - 40 lbs range on a diamond jig while trying to beach the fish and lost bigger one due to line breakage. All from the beach.

[LEXPRO]

Day 4 we told the captain we wanted to catch some yellowtail to bring back so we jigged some rocks at 130ft of water just right outside of the marina and caught a bunch on 100 gram and 135 jigs. I also caught a couple roosters on a jig. I post those pics when i get my other camera downloaded.

Turns out you can have 10 fish per person with no more than 5 per species. We kept 10 yellowtail because the day before another fisherman Jim told us that the MX Navy stopped them and he had more than his limit and took two of his rods/reels as collateral so he would goto thier office on monday. We got stopped too by a armored boat and inspected on the last day. I was so glad that we didnt have any of our gear taken or have any issues like Jim

Here are some pics of the new marina facilities they built for the Pangas. The cleaning tables are amazing and they are putting up the marina for the sportfishers right now...