East Cape - Febrero es loco, Marzo otro poco

[vseasport]

East Cape - Febrero es loco, Marzo otro poco

Gary Graham is not only an accomplished captain and angler but also a renowned sports writer. He has a better pulse on what is happening in Baja then anyone. When Gary speaks I stop and listen.

Yesterday I was on the phone with Gary and he gave me a bit of current recap of current events that he referred to as March madness.

Graham went on to say while most are glued to their TV's clamoring for the latest predictions, brackets and a minutia of player news surrounding College Basketball's annual "March Madness" extravaganza. Baja Sur seems to be offering its own unscheduled version of "March Madness".

Larry Edwards, Cortez Charters, "The marlin were still being mostly uncooperative for the anglers and the crews and the billfish counts remained pretty low this past week".

Pisces Sportfishing , "We had some good catches this week but were plagued with inconsistency. Some days every boat had a marlin then the next they caught nothing as the fish moved around and refused to be tempted by the bait offered."

Captain George Landrum, Fly Hooker Sportfishing, "Until the water cools to a consistent 70 degrees and the Mackerel show up in numbers we are likely to continue to have slow fishing for Striped Marlin. A few boats this week were able to find hungry fish, but most boats saw no sign of them. Most of the ones found were found on the Pacific side in the cooler water. As a good sign of things to come, the water on the Pacific has slowly cooled, and we can see this trend working its way down the coast so hopefully soon the bite will pick up. Meanwhile, the fish that have been found have averaged 110 pounds with a few reported in the 150-180 class, most of them caught on a live bait thrown to a tailing fish."

Did you hear about the Baja Hail!

A surprising hail storm sucker punched us, we didn’t even see it coming. The quickie storm mostly hit north of San Jose Sunday morning bringing us much needed rain but also hail the size of small marbles rained down on the San Jose Viejo, Buenos Aires, San Bernabe, Santa Anita and Costa Dorada barrios.

Some arriving flights were turned around and sent to La Paz where they cooled their heels (tires?) for up to an hour before attempting another landing at San Jose. The Cabo harbor master suspended small boat traffic for a couple of hours too, due to the wind whipped high waves. Strong winds also blew the tarp off the top of the San Jose bull ring. The temporary, (very temporary, it would seem), tarp was stretched over the bull ring for the annual San Jose fiestas.

Meanwhile back on the East Cape.

Rancho Leonero, "As usual for this time of year, the striped marlin bite is wide open! As a bonus, a few sailfish are mixed with the stripers. Perhaps best of all, these billfish are very close to the hotel, right off the La Ribera Bank. For whatever reason, we’re seeing larger-than-normal stripers – from 150- to 200-pounds … the locals call them Cola Anchas, (wide tail in English). They are super abundant and really giving anglers a hard fight in the cooler March water. All Rancho boats are scoring at least one, some boats releasing as many as 6 in one day. Example #1: Ed Wehan from Los Angeles, fishing three days, released 11 striped marlin and 3 sailfish. Example #2: Steve Metzgar and Jim Farrell, visiting from Penn., fished one day and released 6 stripers."

Gary Barnes-Webb continued Leonero's report stating, "Striped Marlin were biting all week with most boats finishing the day with multiple fish. Some anglers baited up 12 fish in a day. All the action was off the La Ribera Bank."

Don't try Cola Ancha on your wife unless you like sleeping on the couch. A couple of days ago gazing out my office window I saw a marlin jumping. When they can be seen from the house I'd say it is time to go fishing.

East Cape water temperature in the Sea of Cortez is 73.5 which is pretty normal for this time. What is unusual is a few sailfish and wahoo in the count. Also, large schools of spotted dolphin feeding on flyers are in the house and many more sea turtles than normal for spring. In my tenure in Baja I have never seen it like this in March.

Every year at this time while in conversation with local Spanish speaking friends, with a smile someone will say "Febrero es loco, Marzo otro poco". While it doesn't really translate literally (February is crazy, March, another little) we all get a laugh and agree, this is a crazy time.

March has brought spectacular sunrises almost everyday

Holy cow! Marlin out my office window.

Cola ancha

Yes, many of the early season stripers have had shoulders.

Spotted dolphin in March. Could we have an early tuna run?

Early for turtle sightings

Jen Wren III in for our 2015 shakedown

Our last winter project ugh! Six years ago everyone including the people at Cabo Yachts thought I had a loose screw building a trailer for our 35 Cabo. Well, I have always thought out of the box and got lucky on this one. The trailer has made it possible for us to keep the boat in our yard during storms and in the winter. Now it is time to knock off the rust and put on a fresh coat of paint. This baby is 45 feet long, 14 feet wide and weights an approximate 5,000 pounds. Prepping to paint has turned into a much bigger job then I anticipated. Once complete I'm going fishing!

Mark Rayor

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