Anglers –
February 10, 2018
Moderate crowds of tourists now, though not many of them are actually anglers looking to go sportfishing. The weather continued to be a bit unpredictable from day to day, as is normal for this month of February. Recently we have seen warmer conditions, earlier in the week we had much morning cloud cover, finally burning off later in the day, by Friday we saw more sunshine, highs up into the 80s. Wind was lighter as well and anglers had great ocean conditions most days. Ocean water temperatures are still ranging from 70 to 75 degree. Clarity was a bit off colored on the Gordo Banks and towards the north. Most fishing action centered from Iman Bank, Punta Gorda, straight off of San Jose and towards Santa Maria.
Sardinas were being netted near Cabo Real and towards Chileno. Strips of squid and some rigged ballyhoo were also being used. Mackerel and sardineta schools were still on local grounds and have been another bait option.
The action for the larger grade of tuna to over 100 lb. faded out on the Gordo Banks, mainly due to the conditions turning over, greener water. There were some yellowfin tuna coming up on the Iman Bank earlier in the week, but these fish proved very elusive and not many were hooked up. Mid-week there were sizable pods of porpoise encountered, from 2 to 4 miles outside of San Jose del Cabo and towards La Laguna, the yellowfin tuna were traveling with them. Charters were able to land from one or two, up to 10 tuna, in the 20 to 35 lb. class, all depending on where you were at a given time, these schools were moving quickly and had to be chased around. Dropping various baitfish into the action was the best bet, very few were striking on lures.
Dorado action continued, the majority of these fish found within a couple of miles of shore, most of these were under 10 lb., with an occasional exception up to 15 lb. Striking on bait best, a smaller percentage on lures. Along the shoreline, particularly near to Cabo San Lucas, off of Chileno, there were some nice sized sierra hitting on slow trolled sardinas, a few up over 8 lb. Also a handful of juvenile sized roosterfish.
Some more activity with the pelagic red crab, some days they were found drifting to the surface and were netted and used for bait, with some decent catches of red snapper coming in. Though this was not a for sure consistent deal from day to day. Commercial fleets were eager to get a supply of the red crabs, at times saving some in make shift live tanks to be used for the next day, in case they were not found on the surface. So we will follow this action closely, this was the same scenario last year during approximately this same time frame.
Other bottom action was slow, besides the red crab bite with the huachinango, red snapper. A few bonito, cabrilla (leopard grouper), barred pargo, medium sized amberjack, yellow snapper and triggerfish.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 61 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 striped marlin, a wahoo, 76 yellowfin tuna, 105 dorado, 3 amberjack, 9 yellow snapper, 8 barred pargo, 14 Eastern Pacific bonito, 68 sierra, 6 roosterfish, 11 cabrilla (leopard grouper), 110 huachinango (red snapper) and 40 triggerfish.
Good fishing, Eric