January 4, 2014
Anglers –

The first week of the New Year has seen many families’s visiting the Los Cabos area. While much of North America is being blasted by icy winter temperatures, Southern Baja has been very pleasant, scattered cloud cover with temperatures reaching up to 80 degrees, lows of about 60 degrees, winds were predominately blowing from the north which is normal during the winter months, so calmer ocean conditions were found in the direction of Cabo San Lucas.

Ocean water temperature now averaged in the 72/74 degree range. Cleaner blue water was found furrther offshore, though most of the fishing action was now encountered closer to shore, where water was a greenish color, with varying degrees of visibility. More baitfish are now schooling in close proximity to the shore, so this is where anglers found more productive action. Concentrations of sardinetas and mackerel are now schooling off of the Old Light House on the Pacific side of Cabo San Lucas. Other options for bait were caballito and ballyhoo, no sardinas were available for this past week.

Anglers found steady action for striped marlin off of the old light house, within about one miles of shore the fleet was concentrated on the bait schools and drifting these same baits down deep to where the marlin were feeding, many charters were accounting for multiple billfish catches, two to four fish per day was common. There was only a scattering of marlin now off of the San Jose del Cabo Banks, where water was cooler and even greener. As the baitfish schools migrate from the Pacific in the direction of the Sea of Cortez, the striped marlin will follow.

With north winds creating unfavorable ocean conditions towards the north, charters from San Jose del Cabo were concentrated on the grounds off of Chelino to Santa Maria and Whale’s Head. The most common catch was two, three or four dorado per boat in the 5 to 15 pound range, striking on rigged ballyhoo, live caballito and a variety of trolled lures. Most of the action found within a couple of miles of shore. Other options were to troll close into the beaches where smaller sized roosterfish and sierra were found. Not much bottom fishing being done, some bonito were hitting on yo-yo jigs off of the Gordo Banks, this is when the weather allowed, as northern winds reside we expect to see more options to open up for the structure species that do move into shallower waters with colder currents.

Breeching humpback and gray whales have been an added tourist attraction, along with flopping manta rays, some pesky sea lions, sea gulls and pelicans. Many celebrities are now in the area for the holidays, here to relax and enjoy the warm sunshine, but this season this has brought an unprecedented entourage of paparazzi’s looking to make a buck, they are hiring local charter boats to take them to the beaches where the stars are reportedly playing, there have been multiple incidents of disputes between celebrity security personnel and these free lance photographers who feel that it is their right to be able to harass these well-known people. Perhaps it is time for new anti-molesting laws to be put in place.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 82 charters for this past week, with anglers accounting for a fish count of: 8 striped marlin, 2 wahoo, 2 yellowfin tuna, 24 bonito, 32 sierra, 16 roosterfish, 194 dorado, 3 mako shark and 15 miscellaneous pargo species.

Good fishing, Eric