If you really want to catch dorado, you can’t do any better than Loreto in July.īy 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. 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.

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.Īs 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. 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? In summer, the annual northward dorado migration up the Sea of Cortez gets started off East Cape about mid-May. 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.

Loreto, mexico - tom bird