August 24, 2013
Anglers –
For the past couple of weeks the weather was relatively calm, hot and humid, with some afternoon breezes. At this time we are bracing for a weekend of thunderstorms, forecasters predict rainfall of six inches possible over the Southern Baja. High swells to 15 feet, with winds of 30 knots will shut down sportfishing operations through the weekend. This storm, now named Tropical Storm IVO, is predicted to follow a path well to the west of the Baja Peninsula, the system is expansive, several separate areas of disturbance are joining forces, slow moving and holding a lot of moisture.
Ocean conditions had settled, we enjoyed calm weather patterns, offshore fishing action was improving steadily. Dorado were the most common catch, with large schools of smaller grade fish now present, there were still some nicer bull dorado to 30 pounds or more accounted for, lot of juveniles to deal with, these should be released to mature and reproduce, dorado are one of the fastest growing species, studies say they grow five pounds per month. Best practice is to release all of the smaller dorado and if interested in capturing your limit of two dorado for personally consumption, choose a pair of the larger catches. Anglers have been finding easy limits for dorado, anglers found these fish from within one mile of shore, to the offshore grounds, these gamefish have been readily striking a wide variety of trolled lures and baits.
Football sized yellowfin tuna have been consistently found in recent weeks, these fish were found closer to shore and not associated with porpoise, schooling on the Iman and San Luis Banks, as well on the Gordo Banks, mixed in with skipjack, finicky to bite at times, striking on strips of squid and trolled hoochies, anglers were fortunate to land several of these small tuna, some anglers did find fast limits. On Tuesday, Gordo Banks Pangas skipper Chame Pino, with angler Dave Martin, visiting from Colorado, while trolling a live bolito on the San Luis Bank hooked into what would be the season’s first La Playita Cow Tuna. While using 80 pound tackle, Dave and Chame teamed to subdue this giant tuna in under two and a half hours.. Commercial pangeros targeting huachinango on this these same grounds had reported that they had seen large tuna feeding on these grounds the previous afternoon, apparently the larger grade yellowfin are now moving into the area, right on schedule.
Billfish action has been steady, lots of striped marlin, some sailfish and good numbers of larger sized blue marlin were reported, many blues were caught and released from anglers on sportfishers. A group of local La Playita pangeros teamed up to land a black marlin that was estimated at easily over 500 lb., hooked while trolling a small yellowfin tuna on the Gordo Banks. The season is showing encouraging prospects for an excellent fall season to come. Wahoo were also more active this past week, despite warm water temperatures near 85 degrees, wahoo to 50 pounds were landed while trolling the blue water ledges, no great numbers, but good for this time of year.
No inshore action now, a few late season roosterfish by the PLC Marina entrance, bottom bite was off due to the persistent strong currents. Red snapper (huachinango are being found in good numbers by the commercial fleet, they have been anchoring on deeper areas and using cut squid. Giant squid are being found in big numbers off of the Los Frailes and East Cape area, small sized giants, under two feet in length, same food source that attracts big fish.
The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 65 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 2 blue marlin, 1 black marlin, 23 striped marlin, 6 sailfish, 115 yellowfin tuna, 250 dorado, 13 wahoo,16 roosterfish, 38 huachinango (red snapper) and 7 cabrilla.
Good fishing, Eric