Anglers –

February 9, 2019

We saw more north winds through most of the week, calming down for the weekend, ideal climate now, moderate crowds, making this a great time to visit the Los Cabos area. Ocean temperatures dropped into the 70 to 72 degree range though most of the region, transition period for migrating pelagic gamefish, warmer water species head south during this colder period.

Offshore action was limited mainly to looking for striped marlin, action was better early in the week and became more scattered as the week progressed. Schools of mackerel were found off of the San Jose del Cabo grounds, as well as sardineta, chihuil and inside the marina area there were caballito. Some unconfirmed reports of sardinas being seen along beach stretches north of Cabo San Lucas, so we are hoping that maybe these baitfish will become available.

With the cooling waters the action for the more glamorous species such as yellowfin tuna, dorado and wahoo has all but halted. Normal deal during this time frame, besides the on and off striped marlin action offshore, fleets start to search out inshore and bottom structure for a variety of smaller fish. We are waiting to see if a run of yellowtail and red snapper develops. There were red crabs found this week drifting to the surface on the Gordo Banks, this is normally a positive sign for finding the red snapper. So far the snapper action was mainly for the smaller sized fish, the huachinango of over ten pounds have not been plentiful yet. More triggerfish off the rock piles than anything else. Drift fishing with pieces of squid seemed to produce the more consistent action, most of these fish smaller in size, but all of them very fine eating. We saw a few sheepshead and pompano in the mix.

The weather feels like we are now on a warming trend, at least we have now seen the frigid low temperatures as the week before. We need these north winds to lay down more and give a chance for ocean conditions to rebound. Recently there were strong currents moving in and out, this always make it tough to try and concentrate on bottom action.

The combined sportfishing fleet out of the panga area from Puerto Los Cabos Marina reported an estimated 59 charters for the week and anglers reported an approximate fish count of: 1 sailfish, 13 striped marlin, 11 dorado, 2 yellowfin tuna, 92 bonito, 125 red snapper, 4 bagueta, 6 yellow snapper, 8 pompano, 10 surgeon fish, 8 barred pargo, 3 sheepshead, 8 hog fish, 13 sierra and 85 triggerfish.

Good Fishing, Eric