Cabo San Lucas in Late May

[DanS]

Originally, my wife and I were planning two days of fishing on the East Cape of Baja. Due to the economic downturn, prices are beginning to soften in Cabo San Lucas and we were able to secure great lodging at a super price. Add to that lots of restaurant choices. Now on to identify a good fishing charter.

There are numerous charters based out of the Cabo San Lucus marina. Has anyone had particularly above-average experiences with a specific company? I'm already following up leads, but I'm open to additional recommendations.

[rparham82]

I fish Cabo about once a year and love it. Picante is a great outfit with some first class boats but you pay a premium(these guys are a dealer for Cabo so the boats are brand new). I've fished with these guys several times and have no complaints they are very professional. That being said I would fish with Minervas. You fish about the same size boats for half the price. Minervas fleet is older but for the price you cant beat them. My captain was very competent and had no issue with me bringing my own tackle. My girlfriend and I fish with Minervas in December and with 7 for 8 on stripers. Hope this helps. RP

[Castmaster]

When I was preparing for my first ever trip to Cabo San Lucas, I did my own charter boat research on the internet. Too many to choose from. I took in consideration the cost of the charter. I knew zero/zip about Cabo except for some fishing articles I've read in fishing mags. I had many pages of printouts of charter outfits in Cabo from the internet. I went through the different charter outfits one by one. I eventually decided on the Dream Maker charter, it's more like a roll of the dice. To my luck I wasn't disappointed. My first ever trip to Cabo and I ended up battling several striped marlins pushing 200lbs, decent sized YFTs and dodos. After that trip, I knew I was hooked to the allure of Baja California Mexico. The good thing about this charter outfit is that they also own a restaurant at the marina specializing in smoked fish. So they also offered smoking of your catch and vacuum packing. I've since moved from fishing Cabo to San Jose del Cabo. Fishing the Gordo Banks on a 24 foot panga is a lot of fun and the best bang for the buck. Plus some of the hotels offer all inclusive. All the food you can eat and drinks (yes including the bar). You can order box lunches to take with you when going fishing.

[DanS]

Thanks! I'll look into these charters.

[kenner21]

renegademikesportfishing.com

mike's from San Dieago so of course he speaks english. He runs a 31 foot bert with good electronics. Mike will also let you fish he prefers not to hand off hooked fish so he'll let you do as much as your comofrtable with. He does broker other boats make sure you fish with him on his boat and you'll have a good trip. Tell him Nate said hello

[BFTMASTER]

Check out Mexfish.com, wealth of info. and latest reports

[DanS]

Originally Posted by kenner21

renegademikesportfishing.com

mike's from San Dieago so of course he speaks english. He runs a 31 foot bert with good electronics. Mike will also let you fish he prefers not to hand off hooked fish so he'll let you do as much as your comofrtable with. He does broker other boats make sure you fish with him on his boat and you'll have a good trip. Tell him Nate said hello

Thanks Kenner21

My wife and I are on Mike's boat for May 27th. I've also invited Mike along to show us how to use light tackle...Cabo style.

[SRUPP]

Let us know how you do and what you think for us considering the same...


cheers

Steven

[DanS]

I hope I can accommodate the request...if the media 'buzz' calms during the next few weeks.

Frontier issued this Current Travel Advisory.

Alaska issued a Mexico Travel Advisory.

My advice is to obtain credible information from numerous sources, evaluate the data, then make the best informed decision possible. Avoid fear and panic.

While I may not agree with all that's presented, here is a counter view to the alarmist views being circulated.

Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic – Fact or Fiction?

You be the judge. And avoid comments by the deeply-confused Joe Biden, if at all possible.

[DanS]

Well, we're back. The fishing was only fair/good (?), but we had a good time.

Cabo Report: According to the locals, the economy is BAD due to multiple factors: recession/depression up north, swine flu scare, and depressed RE. Construction is more-or-less at a stand still. No crowds. There's some unbelievable package deals about, or you can find many individual bargains.

While I book my charters back in January/February, there's no point in booking ahead...even a week. Most of the boats sit idle in the marina. On Thursday, I walked over to the beach on the Pacific side for some surf casting (roosters and jacks). I watched a good size jack chase a baitfish up onto the beach.



As we walked back through the Cabo marina, the panga boats owners were all over us. The price kept going down and down...one fellow offered to accept $60USD for 4 hours on his panga. I'm sure the cruiser charters would also be willing to lower prices. The mate on my first boat mentioned that they had only 4 charters in the past 2 months, and the slip rental was supposedly $1,200@mo! Ouch!

So, if you want to do Cabo or San Jose, buy a deeply-discounted airfare, shuttle from the airport is $15, I paid $50 for a clean/basic room at Hotel Mar de Cortez, (never more than 4 people at the pool, full-plate breakfast at Spencer's there inside the hotel was 35 pesos, $1 beer specials everwhere)



and walk down to the Marina with pole in hand. The restaurants are also begging for business. We caught some nice Leopard Groupers while fishing some rock/reef areas and took them to the restaurant for preparation. They only charged us $6 a plate for all the sides, and the drinks were reasonably priced as well. We shared the fish fry with others sitting around us, and well as the wait staff.

Wednesday we stuck with mainly inshore stuff up in the Sea of Cortez. Wind was blowing out on the Pacific side. Got some good action on jigs, but also got bit off by the sierras. One fish stripped lots of line before he cut the line. It was the boat owner's gear and he discouraged metal leaders. He claimed the bite was better without 'em and he didn't mind sacrifice a few jigs for the better bite.

Much of the inshore action was young roosterfish (4-8lbs). We were hoping for some larger, but they supposedly hadn't moved down from the north yet. They were aggressive in taking live bait and lots of fun. I tried various lures, had fun casting from the bow point on a 31' Bertram,



but I thinks my lures were too big for the smaller roosters. They would follow but not hit 'em. The lures did work on the grouper, snapper, and needfish. See Fish Indentifier by Jansen Lures which has his shop in the Hotel Mar de Cortez.



My wife, Diane. Her first ever roosterfish. That's Mike of RenegadeMike Sportfishing.





Friday, was open water fishing for marlin. Saw several, but couldn't tempt them to take the live bait. Caught my first ever about 1:00pm. The sun was blazing, the water a beautiful blue, and the boat was trolling hula skirts (squids). The lures were relatively close to the boat, maybe 30yds. I was using a lure at 80-100yds, sure that would be more acceptable to a leery fish. I got the privilege of watching the marlin approach the hula lure, slide up beside and then...BAM! It took him only seconds to strip off 150-200yds of line. It took me 20-25 minutes to get him to the boat. Took some pictures and then released him. The captain claimed he was 120-130lbs. Great experience!

The hunt...




Rode back to the airport on the shuttle with some guys who got some tuna. They had purchased coolers locally, and had the fish flash frozen and vacuum packed.

PS. Flew Frontier and Alaska. Had no problems with my rod case, nor extra charges.