Loreto fishing articles, maps, fishing reports, peak seasons, hot spots, and vacation travel information for the top sportfishing locations of Loreto, Mexico.
Sitting astride latitude 26 north on the Sea of Cortez, Mexico’s famous Loreto sportfishing area enjoys an enviable geographic position, very close to the northern limit of what you could think of as Baja California’s truly “warm water” fishing zone, while only 80 miles north of Loreto--near Punta Chivato--the fishery changes significantly as water temperatures begin to transition more and more toward the cooler ranges of the Midriff Area. Loreto’s geographic location, sandwiched between the cooler waters of the Midriff Area to its north and the warmer waters of the southern Sea of Cortez, gives it two very pronounced fishing seasons on two very different and highly-prized game fish: dorado in the summer months, and yellowtail in winter.
In summer, the annual northward dorado migration up the Sea of Cortez gets started off East Cape about mid-May. By mid-June, the main mass of dorado is centered in the remote Juanaloa archipelago north of La Paz, and guess what happens in July?
Loreto’s famous July dorado fishing run is a reliable blast of nearly idiot-proof surface action as the always-hungry, golden-hued predators crowd into the channels and just outside the many islands between Punta San Marcial in the south, and Punta Pulpito in the north.
As the Loreto sportfishing area’s water temperatures climb into the low and middle-80s, many of these dorado will actually be headed farther north, up to the Mulege area, and some even penetrate into the Midriff’s cooler waters, but most years, Loreto gets the lion’s share of the catch. Troll live bait if you must, as is the local tradition, but really, almost any method of surface fishing, with almost any kind of lure, will get you dorado limits at these times. If you really want to catch dorado, you can’t do any better than Loreto in July.
By mid-November, though, the summer dorado have largely abandoned Loreto's sport fishing waters (you’ll still snag a few stragglers), and they are in turn replaced in the local fishing action by cool water-loving, deep-dwelling yellowtail, as water temperatures fall back down into the mid-70s and then the mid-60s by January. This Loreto yellowtail “run” is composed of both “home guard” resident fish, and fish that have migrated south from the Midriff and Mulege areas, and it will persist through the winter and into spring, finally tapering off in mid-April. |