Hurricane Sandra Near Miss, Ports Closed Two Days, Wahoo,Tuna,Dorado,Billfish Ready to Strike ~ November 28, 2015

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Anglers –
November 28, 2015

This year of 2015 will be remembered for all of the rebuilding efforts created from Hurricane Odile devastation in September of 2014. This year there was record early forming hurricanes in May and now the Los Cabos area has just dogged a major hit by one of the latest Hurricanes to ever form in the Eastern Pacific. This storm named Sandra, follows Rick of last week, which never impacted land, though Sandra strengthened to a category four storm and appeared to be on a collision course with the Southern Baja, but the system was pushed away by strong shear, which also caused Sandra to weaken rapidly and pass far enough to the south to not cause any local damage. Los Cabos ports were closed for at least Friday and part of Saturday, by Sunday sportfishing fleets do expect to be back operating as normal. Swells increased to 10/12 feet, though wind never amounted to much and rainfall was not significant either.

We are now just winding down from our busy fall season, there always is a slack period after Thanksgiving and before Christmas, family priority shift directions. Though this past week was busy with visitors. The week started off with persistent north winds limited options for anglers and making the overall action more spread out, by mid-week, the conditions calmed before the storm and we saw improved fishing action. The most common catches were wahoo, yellowfin tuna, dorado, sailfish and striped marlin, also some roosterfish found near shore. For the most part there were no large numbers of any particular species, though there were some quality fish being accounted for, many days charters would just account for two, three or four fish in combination, though there were dorado to 25 lb., wahoo to 50 lb. and tuna to 80 lb. all accounted for.

Dorado were harder to find compared to previous week, though wahoo became more active around the Iman Bank, early in the morning was best and you had to capitalize and make the best of the chances that you did have. Trolling with caballito, chihuil and various lures all produced wahoo strikes. Dorado were found scattered, no hot spot, though we did hear of more numbers of dorado found on the Pacific. Ocean Temperatures were ranging 79 to 82 degrees through most of the region. Still no reports of any new resource for sardinas, tuna action would be more consistent if this bait was available, most tuna are still be taken on strips of squid. The Inner Gordo Bank produced yellowfin tuna over 80 lb. and some days schooling tuna to 100 lb. could be seen surfacing, but were very finicky to bite any offerings. The action for tuna found under the porpoise became more sporadic, but was still an options when anglers found themselves in the right place at the right time.

More striped marlin appeared on local grounds, not always in the mood to bite, as they can be near full moon. There were two black marlin reportedly landed from private boats out of Puerto Lo Cabos Marina and there was a blue marlin landed from a panga that was estimated to weigh close to 500 lb., this blue was hooked on a trolled caballito late in the afternoon about five miles off of Red Hill and was not landed and brought back to the docks until midnight. With the warm waters there are still quite a few sailfish in the area for this late in the year, most of these in the 40 to 80 lb. class.

Not much off the bottom now besides triggerfish, small cabrilla and pargo, also a few bonito. A few charters reports good success on roosterfish while slow trolling caballito near Punta Gorda, surprising to see roosterfish at this time, some of them to 20 lbs. Lots of barracuda keeping anglers busy off the marina dock area, also a few sierra showing up.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 89 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 black marlin, 1 blue marlin, 15 sailfish, 19 striped marlin, 90 yellowfin tuna, 35 dorado, 39 wahoo, 13 sierra,, 35 misc. pargo species, 14 cabrilla, 22 bonito, 28 roosterfish and 44 triggerfish

Good fishing, Eric

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