San Jose del Cabo Weather Link

Water Temperature > http://tempbreak.com/index.php?&cwregion=cb

March 5, 2011

Anglers –

Spring was in the air as we entered the month of March, a warming trend swept through the Southern Baja region, pleasant sunny days with high temperatures reaching close to eighty degrees. Crowds of tourists have noticeably increased this past week and everyone seemed to be enjoying the ideal climate. With the spring break vacation period beginning, we do anticipate busy times in coming weeks and the weather is on track to cooperate as well. There continues to be unpredictable winds from varying directions, which always seems to be the pattern during transition period of winter to spring time conditions. This past week we saw improved ocean conditions, currents had brought water temperatures down in the range of 65 to 68 degrees, but at this time there is once again a warming trend and we are seeing temperatures back up in the 70 to 72 range.

With ocean conditions fluctuating rapidly anglers found the all around action to be a bit inconsistent, though there was quite a variety of fish found, with the best reports coming off of inshore rock piles or trolling along the beach stretches. Supplies of sardinas were scarcer, schools of the baitfish were scattered and commercial pangeros encountered stronger tidal conditions while throwing their bait nets. There were caballito available as another option, though the smaller sardinas were the bait of choice for inshore panga action.

This week anglers found yellowfin tuna schooling on the Iman Bank, lots of fish were seen feeding on the surface, but getting these finicky fish to strike a baited hook proved difficult. Using lighter leader material down to 20 to 30 pound resulted in higher hook up percentages. These yellowfin were commonly in the 15 to 30 pound class, with a few of the 40 to 60 pound size models mixed in. Many of the larger sized fish ended up breaking off due to light line, but the problem was the fish would not hit the more visible heavier leaders. If it was not the problem of the fish being so picky and shy, there was even a worse sea lion situation, as a group of these aggressive mammals have been feeding on tuna that anglers are battling to bring to gaff on lighter tackle. Though it definitely is frustrating it adds variety to your fish stories. Recent days have seen average catches per charter at anywhere from one to four tuna, with black skipjack and bonito mixed in the same areas.

There were reports of red snapper being caught close off of the rocky beaches on the Pacific, tossing live baits into the surf zone, always exciting. Sierra have been fairly plentiful for anglers targeting them with sardinas, some nicer sized fish up to six pounds were accounted for. Roosterfish, jack crevalle and a few pompano rounded out the inshore action. The roosters were mostly all juvenile sized, but are a good sign that we  should see a big run of the larger roosterfish arrive later in the spring and early summer.

Anglers found less consistent action off of the bottom, though there were some nice yellowtail, amberjack, snapper and cabrilla accounted for. Not in the numbers as previous weeks. It will be interesting to see if the larger yellowtail show in any significant numbers near the San Jose del Cabo area, as the big yellows are now really hitting out of the East Cape and La Paz areas.

Not many dorado found the past week, fewer wahoo, as the water temperature conditions warm we will see these fish become more active. There were scattered reports of striped marlin for the cruiser fleets trolling offshore from 6 to 15 miles, blind jig strikes and casting to fining fish. Still no schooling mackerel found on local fishing grounds.

The combined panga fleet launching from La Playita/Puerto Los Cabos sent out approximately 82 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 striped marlin, 4 mako shark, 8 hammerhead shark, 122 yellowfin tuna, 14 dorado, 16 cabrilla, 4 grouper, 18 amberjack, 84 yellowtail, 36 pargo, 24 bonito, 9 pompano,148 sierra and 45 roosterfish.

Good fishing, Eric