Anglers –
September 30, 2017

Finally the weather in Los Cabos has changed and it is now actually feeling like fall, with cooler mornings, slightly less humidity and daytime highs a moderate 85 degrees. No new tropical storms on the horizon, last week we were a bit nervous about TS Pilar, but it never amounted to much, as it make contact with mainland Mexica and dissipated. On Tuesday we did have some isolated rain showers which just kind of formed locally, not associated with any tropical storm front, charter boats still went out, because early morning things appeared okay, but most everyone that did venture out became drenched to some degree. Early in the week there were several water spouts sighted, as skies was very tropical. The Baja landscape has transformed into a lush green jungle as a result to this seasons high rainfall total.

Anglers were using a mix of strips of squid and sardinas, concentrating on the fishing grounds from the Gordo Banks north to Vinorama. Very strong current has been running, pushing in off colored greener water on certain grounds, changing daily as to clarity on one area versus others. As a general rule the fishing action can become more sporadic and tougher when such strong currents are present. The most common target species has continued to be the yellowfin tuna, sizes ranging from 5 lb. footballs to 100 lb. Numbers were down in recent days, but some quality tuna were accounted for, all were taken while drift fishing various baits, sardinas, chunks of skipjack, cocinero or strips of squid. The yellowfin were finicky and line shy, so best results came on lighter leaders and smaller pieces of bait. Some of the more significant catches per boat consisted of landing several nicer grade tuna in the 60 to 90 lb. class per morning, though for the most part anglers were fortunate to account for one nice tuna, along with maybe a mix of a few pargo, small dorado or others, no big numbers of anything, but there were some quality fish being brought in every day.

Dorado bite was scarce and mainly for an occasional fish under ten pounds, no wahoo to speak of, though if anglers were to specifically target these fish near Vinorama there is a chance, because East Cape charters have been doing that. A couple of nice amberjack to over 50 lb., one rare 17 lb. golden phased leopard grouper, a handful of huachinango (red snapper) and yellow snapper rounded out the limited bottom action.

Billfish were very scattered, not much being reported on the grounds off of San Jose del Cabo, perhaps better chance for marlin now on the Pacific. No inshore panga action reported, though local surf anglers out of La Playita reported good numbers of barracuda, jack crevalle and a couple of days of nice tripletail action.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 105 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 3 sailfish, 35 dorado, 4 wahoo, 1 rainbow runner, 6 amberjack, 225 yellowfin tuna, 12 yellow snapper, 26 huachinango, 1 golden leopard grouper, 4 barred pargo, 3 glass eye snapper (local name) and 80 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
September 23, 2017

Last week we were preoccupied following Tropical Storm Norma, local Ports were shut down for three days, Saturday thru Monday, due to higher storm swells, though the storm stalled and veered further off to the west and never did impact land. Hardly any rainfall at all was reported in Los Cabos and we felt 30 mph wind gusts, but basically we dodged a bullet this time. We have now officially started the fall season, though with the high humidity it still feels more like summer. Light crowds the past couple of weeks, with people being more nervous about traveling during possibility of storms moving through the area.

Fishing action has been mainly centered on the Gordo Banks and north to Iman Bank. Early in the week water clarity was greenish near Iman and the better action was found on the Gordo Banks, most common catches were for yellowfin tuna in the 50 to 100 lb. class, drift fishing with strips of sardinas, no big numbers of tuna being landed, though at times lots of yellowfin could be seen breezing the surface, just very finicky in striking the baits that had hooks in them. Anglers were doing well to land one or two of these quality tuna. Later in the week bait suppliers found some sardinas off the beach stretches further to the north and with the water cleaning up on the Iman Bank the medium sized tuna in the 5 lb. to 30 lb. range bit well there. Also some dorado in the mix, but most all under ten pounds and not nearly as numerous as before the most recent storm system passed by.

Some days the yellowfin tuna were more active early in the day, especially on the Gordo Banks, but then things switched around and more action on these grounds was found later in the day. Tuna of 170 lb. and another close to 300 lb. were accounted for by groups of local anglers, specifically targeting these larger tuna, putting in long extra hours and bringing ample supplies of slabs of squid to continue chumming throughout the day.

Anglers using yo-yo style jigs had mixed success on various red snapper, pargo and amberjack, no big numbers, but a few nice fish accounted for, a handful of nice yellowfin were also hooked into on these jigs.

Not much billfish action reported, though this week most anglers were targeting the tuna or dorado action. There was a lack of skipjack and other baitfish on the grounds early in the week, but as the week progressed and water conditions stabilized, there was more bait schools being reported.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 46 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 1 wahoo, 44 dorado, 1 blue marlin, 3 rainbow runner, 9 amberjack, 144 yellowfin tuna, 4 yellow snapper, 25 huachinango and 85 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric

Anglers –
September 16, 2017

Now in the final weeks of the summer season, we are seeing lighter crowds of tourists, as families are now getting settled into the start of the new Fall School semester. This is now peak time for tropical storms to develop and potentially strike the Los Cabos area, this week is the three year anniversary of the incredibly destructive Hurricane Odile. Two weeks ago we felt the impact of a direct hit by TS Lidia, clean up and rebuilding is an ongoing process. This week we have been following three separate tropical systems off to the south of Southern Baja, Hurricane Max is now dissipating as it made landfall in Southern Mexico, the other low pressure area off to the west is not doing much, weakening and is circling far away from land. The storm we are now carefully watching is Tropical Storm Norma, forecast to reach category 1 hurricane status over the weekend. This system is presently moving very slowly and gaining strength, latest forecast has showed it veering further off the west, off of Todo Santos, but ii is unpredictable exactly what path Norma will follow. So precautious preparations are necessary, we are expecting storm surf surges to increase as large as 15 ft. to 20 ft. on Sunday, hopefully not too high of winds and surely we will have rainfall, hopefully nothing like the 27 plus inches we endured from TS Lidia.

Calm conditions prevailed this past week, light winds in the afternoons, mostly clear skies, very high humidity, slightly cooler temperatures at night, with daytime heat index averaging 100 degrees. Ocean water temperature has cooled slightly over the past couple of weeks, now averaging 84 to 86 degrees. Off colored greenish currents are swirling throughout the region, varied clarity in certain areas from day to day. Most of the floating debris from the storm wash out has now dissipated. The fishing has been on and off ever since the passing of Lidia, there were good numbers of dorado found, though the majority were juvenile sized, an occasional fish over 15 lb. Dorado were found in schools throughout the region while trolling medium sized lures. Also they world readily strike on a variety of bait.

Bait suppliers were able to find sardinas near shore early in the week and along with strips of squid, these were the main bait options available. We expect sardinas will not be obtainable over the weekend with high storm swells, but as those reside hopefully sardina supplies will return and remain steady. Yellowfin tuna were being found from the Gordo Banks and towards the Iman Bank, action was sporadic, from scratchy to wide open, depended a lot on clarity and currents that were running at a given time. Often the yellowfin tuna were seen boiling on the surface, but they proved to be finicky, some days biting right off the bat early, then slim pickings, coming back up late, hard to predict. Average size tuna was in the 10 to 15 lb. class, yellowfin tuna to over 50 lb. were accounted for, though numbers were limited. Reports of tuna to 100 lb. seen in the mix, though the larger grade of tuna have not been striking much. The majority of all tuna action was found while drift fishing with strips of squid or sardinas.

Only a handful of wahoo strikes reported, more of them lost than actually landed. We expect when the water temperatures cool off a bit more and we see cleaner blue water back close to shore, that wahoo activity will improve. Billfish were scattered, a few sailfish, striped, blue and black marlin hook ups reported, though we only had limited numbers of angler visiting now and most of these were preferring to target species such as tuna and dorado. No bottom or inshore action to really report on, besides a few red snapper and triggerfish.

The combined panga fleets launching out of La Playita, Puerto Los Cabos Marina sent out approximately 49 charters for the week, with anglers reporting a fish count of: 1 black marlin, 6 sailfish, 12 white skipjack, 155 dorado, 3 wahoo, 170 yellowfin tuna, 5 yellow snapper, 14 huachinango and 42 triggerfish.

Good fishing, Eric