SPORTFISHING BOATS FISHING WITH CUT SQUID BAIT AT LOS BARRILES

Sept. 17, 2005, Chuck Meredith, Los Barriles, East Cape, Baja California Sur, Mexico:

The Los Barriles bite is this, go out in front of the hotels 1 mile and pull up Humbolt giant squid for 1 hour. Then, the boats run south 50 miles, as the deckhand makes bait strips and chunks out of the caught squid. Once on the Gordo Banks, the chumming of handfuls of squid around your baited hook takes place. Tuna are being caught this way. Then wind up at 1 p.m. for the long boat ride back to the hotels. Then, your tuna is thrown on the bed of a super heated steel pickup bed for a slow ride to the cleaning tables. And all day, the temperature is in the mid 90's and the water temp is 87. Gives your sushi a "distinctive" taste, if this is the taste you like.

I read there was a tuna bite going up there at Punta Perico, so 2 boats went up. Sardines were available in the bay. We ran 3 miles to the rock faced Punta Perico, and drifted sardines in 200 feet of water. Ten pangas there, all charter. I got 1 in the boat, a 20 pounder. Lost 3 to pulled 1/0 hooks. The sardines are tiny! Use a small pinch weight. The bite over at 9:30 a.m. The average was 1 tuna a boat for all boats there! If this is a WFO bite, then the reporters up there, are schemers like the old carnival days. I won't believe them anymore.